


Set Fire to Our Bed

by LalaRose27



Category: Legacies (TV 2018), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Bonkai May 10th Appreciation Week, Child Abuse, Consensual Violence, Dysfunctional Relationships, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intrusive Thoughts, Racism, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:29:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LalaRose27/pseuds/LalaRose27
Summary: She peered down to the root of him, past the layers of him trying-wanting- to be good, to find all the darkness in his soul hidden under thousands of miles of good intent. When she found this, she smiled and thought, “Yummy.”
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Malachai "Kai" Parker
Comments: 71
Kudos: 75





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is from a tweet by Leah Williams, a writer for Marvel comics, about Emma Frost and Scott Summers. That quote now rules my life and is the new basis for all my ships.
> 
> It is important to note that I have never watched a single episode of Vampire Diaries in my life. I have seen clips of it in manips, and watched the first few seasons of the Originals and am almost done with the first season of Legacies but not a single episode of Vampire Diaries. So why write a fic for it? Because I saw all the tags on tumblr and read a lot of BonKai fics and meta and decided to throw my hat into the ring. The ship is really interesting because no one thinks these two should be together because of love or anything. People think they should be together so that Bonnie can finally have some goddamn character development and someone who appreciates her. Like everyone wants Bonnie to kill Kai and be the only one able to and if she lets him live, it is only because he brings out a darkness in her she didn’t know she possessed. Which is so fascinating to me. Plus, this is a role reversal fic so I don’t need to be accurate with my knowledge of TVD. The role reversal idea was based on Leah Naberrie’s Wicked Witch of the West on FF.net, i may just take your breath away by Donutworry on AO3, and Oscar’s characterization is based on Ring of Fire by Albion19 on AO3.

An old man walked into the room, tired and turned on the light. He just got out of another coven meeting, where nothing productive had happened. The elders spent the entire time bickering and even he got pulled into the undignified mess of it all. He poured himself a finger of whiskey and before he could drink it, he heard a voice.

“Joshua Parker.” A smooth, amused voice spoke from the corner of the room. “You’ve aged terribly.”

Joshua Parker jumped up, knocking over his glass. His eyes fall on the girl, half hidden by shadows. In his old age, his vision worsened but his memory has not forgotten that voice.

“Bonnie Bennett,” He says, willing his heart to slow down.

The nightmare in the form of a young girl smiles. “I’m glad you remember me, Mr. Parker. I thought that with your old age, you forgot about me. I mean, that’s why I was stuck in the Prison World for so long right?”

“How did you get out?” Joshua asked. “When did you get out?”

“Not too long ago.” Bonnie says, standing up. 

Bonnie took a step into the light, towards the old man. She hadn’t aged since he last saw her. Same bob haircut, same cold green eyes, and same cold smile. Bonnie’s youthful pretty face was smooth and unaffected by time. Her clothes had changed, though. Gone were her maroon, lace shirt and denim overalls. Now she wore jeans and a red, long sleeve top- the top stained with a bloody wound she held with her right hand.

“Thank your grandson for this.” Bonnie said, noticing his eyes hadn’t left her wound. She shot him a bright smile and, in a soft voice, said, “It’s my first time in the twenty-first century and he already gave me a gift. This will be the first permanent change to my body in nearly two decades.” 

She blinked out of whatever thoughts she was thinking to address the white haired man. “Why haven’t you used your magic yet?

“Because you can’t kill me.” Joshua tells her, cocky in her actions. She may have been able to trick one of his grandsons into getting her out but that didn’t mean she had any power.

“Ah, but the thing is,” Bonnie took another step towards him. “You’re not the leader of the Geminis anymore are you? So I can kill you.” She shrugged and wore a cold smile. “And even if you were still the leader, there are plenty of other fun things that will have you begging for death.”

Joshua paled. “ _Vodux_!”

Bonnie flung back and laughed when she hit the wall. Before Joshua could make a run for it however, Bonnie flung out her arm and stopped laughing. Joshua was frozen in place.

His mind raced. “Where had the abomination gotten magic? Who gave it to her?” He wondered.

Bonnie walked to him, eyes cold and furious, her magic holding the spell. “Are you surprised? I know I was but I guess all the knick knacks you have lying around your office are good for something. And your cute grandson, but he was good for a lot of other things.”

\---

“You can call me Bonnie,” She introduces herself. The small girl was rather calm for being stared down by a vampire. Damon found her browsing the Blockbuster that had been turned into a spa in the present day. Kai was introduced to her standing over the vampire with a broken bat in hand. With what little power he had left, Kai threw a shelf at her, knocking her to her feet and giving Damon the chance to tie her to a chair.

“I thought you were a hallucination,” Bonnie continues. “So I followed you around for a few days, see if I was truly going mad in this place. Then I watched you for a little while longer because you two are so much more interesting than what’s on T.V. And I apologize for the terrible introduction, being alone all this time has done a number on my people skills. And you attacked me first.”

“How long have you been here?” Damon demands.

“Who the hell knows? The days have blurred together in this static little hell, time has lost all meaning, and I was about to start talking to stuffed animals before I found you guys.” Bonnie told them dramatically. Once upon a time, girls and their dramatics would have annoyed Kai. But after five months with no one but Damon and his complaining for company, Bonnie’s voice was like music to his ears. 

“Say,” She looked up, giving Kai a once over. “You boys wouldn’t happen to be my knights in shining armor would you? I’ve been here so long, I was starting to lose hope someone was gonna save me.”

“We don’t even know where we are.” Kai said.

“A pocket dimension.” Bonnie answered simply.

“How do we get out? Kai asks.

“Well going off my research… we need an Ascendant, a major celestial event, a spell, and some Parker blood so unless you know where to all find that…”The girl trailed off.

“Well looks like you’re useful for once, Parker.” Damon nudged.

The girl’s green eyes brightened with surprise. “You’re a Parker? Like of the Gemini Parkers?”

“Yeah, you’ve heard of us?” Kai asked. How did she not know he was a Parker? Damon barely remembered his first name half the time, calling him ‘Little Parker’ so if this girl was watching them for as long as she said she was, she would have picked up on it.

Before he could think about it further, Bonnie shot him a look that said, ‘well duh!’ “The Geminis are only the biggest coven on the West Coast. Super secretive and super powerful. Is Joshua Parker still the leader?”

Kai shrugged. His family history was something Kai’s mom avoided, never mentioning their names much less their witchy ancestry. She only confessed their magical background to him and his twin brother, Jake, when the vampires came to town. Even then Jo Parker didn’t have a lot to teach them since she left the witch lifestyle before they were born and had no grimoires to pass down to them. Kai’s twin brother, Jake used his magic more freely and spent his time trying to get his hands on more spells while Kai spent his time keeping his twin brother out of trouble with less reckless spells. The only information their mom bothered to tell them between her many shifts at the hospital was that they were descended from a long line of powerful but crazy witches.

“Where’s the rest of the stuff?” Damon demands.

“Don’t know. I was honestly kinda banking on being saved not gonna lie.” She gave them a look that said, ‘sorry not sorry.’ “But… if you let me go, I can help you find it.”

“How can we know you’re not just going to kill us both once you get out of here?” Kai asks.

“One, I can’t beat a vampire. Look at me, I’m tiny, I’d have no chance. Two, I need  _ you _ as much as you need me. Three, I don’t have my own magic.” Bonnie told them simply. “ _ Motus _ .” 

Both boys flinched but neither they nor any other objects flew through the air. They relax when they realize this.

“See?” Bonnie said simply. “This place drained me of my powers. Any longer and you,” She pointed her head at Kai. “Will be just as powerless. And no amount of Parker blood will get you out of here without the spell.”

“Great so there’s a time limit to this shit,” Damon says. “Fantastic.”

“What do you say?” Bonnie smiled. “You help me get out, I’ll help you get out. Just one, thing- I’m not having sex with either of you.”

Kai scoffs. “Are you serious?” The thought hadn’t occurred to him but once the idea was planted in his mind, well-

“Yes!” Bonnie says. “I made a vow to myself and I wouldn’t want us to get sidetracked with pleasure.”

Kai was annoyed and suspicious of Bonnie but he knew there was no other option. His magic was dwindling by the day, he could barely light a candle anymore. If there was a chance to get out of here, he had no other choice but to take it. And at least with her, he’d have someone else besides Damon to spend time with. Even if it is someone as untrustworthy as her. Especially with someone as untrustworthy as her around, it would be better to keep an eye on her.

“Fine,” Kai decided. “Let’s go.”

\---

When Malachai Parker was ten years old he thought bad thoughts. He thought about hurting his brother by breaking all his baseball trophies and using the pieces to stab him. He thought about breaking the car window and using the shards to break his skin. During a field trip he stood under a lantern with a pointed edge that creakily swung in the wind. He looked over the ledge of a four story building and thought about jumping so he could land flat on the gravel below. He thought about taking the musket on the wall and stabbing himself with it.

These thoughts scared ten year old Malachai Parker.

Not because what he was thinking was scary, but because how much he wanted to do it.

He could chalk it up to the fact he watched too much television or because he spent too much time listening to rock music or because he spent too much time alone.

Either way, he knew he was really messed up.

Ten years old was also when his powers manifested for the first time. He was thinking bad thoughts because he had gotten a bad grade on his English test and thought about breaking all the plates in his house. When he tightened his fist, the plate in his mom’s hand shattered. She let out a yelp and then another plate shattered, and then another. Kai unclenched his fist and looked at the mess on the floor. His mother had stared at him in horror. She then grabbed a knife and made Kai hold onto it, wrapping her big hands around his tiny ones. Kai could feel the energy draining from him, what kind of energy he did not know but it left him tired and afraid. 

“Never speak of this again.” Jo Parker told her son with all the seriousness she had. Kai nodded, afraid and never spoke of the incident ever again. He didn’t even bring it up when his brother began manifesting his own magic six years later.

Ten year old Malachai Parker made a vow to himself to never act on those urges. What was the good in acting out if it brought him nothing but suffering? He became the good twin, nerdy but nice and harmless. He got his brother out of trouble and cleaned up with messes, he cooked dinner so his mom wouldn’t have to worry when she came home, he played wingman for his best friend even though he had a crush on the girl since first grade. Malachai Parker was a good guy.

In high school, he found it was much more difficult to not act on those urges. With murderous vampires and such running around town. He found the knife his mother put his magic in inside a box in their attic and took back his power. His friends got their hands dirty and he cleaned them off. Either with magic or his own life, Malachai Parker was there to lessen the destruction. But, he never killed any of them.

Things got even more difficult after he died. Kai was distracting Klaus so his brother could deliver the final blow to the Hybrid. Klaus snapped Kai’s neck and while the Original did not die but he did leave town for a while. Jake, during that time, used his magic to resurrect his twin. 

Dying and coming back to life took a lot out of a guy. His friends tried to play it cool like nothing happened and Jake made an effort to show his brother a little more affection but Kai felt different. He couldn’t put his finger down on what it was exactly. Until he slammed his hands on the table and yelled at Damon when the vampire asked him to grab him another drink. Elena, Jeremy, Damon, Jake, and Caroline stared at him in shock. His mask fell off and Kai quickly composed himself and got Damon a drink as an apology but everyone tiptoed around him for a week. Everything went back to normal once Kai slipped on the mask.

\---

“Here,” Bonnie says, spreading an aged paper map on the table of the Salvatore Boarding House. “We need to find the Ascendant. Last place I knew it was was the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been there a lot trying to find it but it’s either hidden too well or has a cloaking spell over it.”

“If there’s a cloaking spell, what makes you think I can find it?” Kai asks. Even when he had his powers Kai wasn’t trained to perform even the most basic spells.

“Give yourself some credit. You have a little magic left in you,” Bonnie told him, moving closer to Kai. “Try and use it to find the Ascendant.”

“Save room for Jesus there witchy.” Damon spoke up from across the room. Both Bonnie and Kai glared at him.

“Ignore him.” Bonnie told Kai. “I lived in a loud house and it used to be super distracting but it helped me focus. Tune him out and focus on the spell. Repeat it in your mind until it’s the only thing you can think of.”

Kai closed his eyes, trying to tune both of them out. But he could still feel Damon staring holes into him. Bonnie seemed to sense this tension as well.

“Why don’t you go outside or something? Give him some space to concentrate?” She told the vampire.

“Try not to leave without me.” He responded and left.

“I can’t wait to get away from that guy.” Bonnie said.

“Me neither.” Kai mumbled.

“You have the patience of a saint.”

Bonnie placed her hand on Kai’s chest, an action that made his eyes snap open and his heart beat faster. She looked back at him passively. “Focus on your breathing.” She instructed. He closed his eyes then inhaled and exhaled deeply.

“Do you feel your magic inside you? Focus on it and breathe.” A few more deep breaths and the candles were lit. Bonnie smiled at the tiny flames and took her hand off his chest. “Good now focus on the spell.”

Kai mourned the loss of her tiny hand on his chest but did what he was instructed and began chanting the spell. Damon returned in time to see the spell completed. The trail showed the Ascendant went from Portland to Mystic Falls. 

“It’s here?” Damon asked leaning over the table.

Kai closed his eyes and tried to think of the Ascendant in his mind, he had a feeling who had it but he wanted to be sure. He began to feel the magic energy in the air and shifted through the familiar energies to find a new but faint signature. 

“You have the ascendant.” The closer Kai gets to Bonnie, the more the air vibrates around him. “It’s right…” He reaches towards her back, never breaking eye contact. He lets his hand be guided by the vibrating sensation. “Here.” 

He dips his hand into her back pocket, using all his self control not to linger and enjoy the softness of her behind. Kai pulls out the ascendant, a steampunk looking device. Bonnie smiles but Kai’s eyes never leave her green ones.

“Oh dear, that’s embarrassing.” She says playfully.

“Great so you just wasted our time,” Damon said, making them tear their faces away from one another. “Again, tell us why we shouldn’t just kill you right here and now.”

“Because I know how to use this thing.” She walks past both of them to go outside. Both boys follow her.

“Why didn’t you just tell us where it was in the first place?” Kai asks, walking after her.

“Don’t be so upset,” Bonnie tells him and although her back is turned, Kai knows she’s smiling. “You got to cop a feel didn’t you?”

Blood runs to Kai’s ears and Damon lets out a chuckle.

“Don’t be embarrassed, I didn’t mind. Besides, I needed to know how exact your magic is in order to perform the spell.” She spins around. “And you passed. Your magic hasn’t been taken away yet.”

Kai eyed the girl warily. “Something’s not right with her.” Finding her was suspicious enough but hiding the Ascendant was a red flag. Now she was looking for something she should have had plenty of time to prepare for. How many more until she stabbed them in the back?

“You’re just not used to girls flirting with you.” Damon responded, watching Bonnie walk around in her mini skirt. For someone who talked about Elena nonstop for the last couple months, fought other people for her, and other love triangle nonsense, Damon was acting pretty comfortable checking out another girl who was  _ not _ Elena. As Damon kept looking at Bonnie, Kai imagined burning the vampire with his mind.

Not for the first time, Kai wished he was trapped with someone with brain cells or at least, common sense. The vampire was far too eager to ignore all the warning signs if it meant he could get out of here. “I can’t wait to get out of here and talk to someone else.”

Jake was the popular one in high school but that didn’t mean Kai didn’t have his own admirers. He had a girlfriend before all the drama of vampires and protecting his brother took precedence over dating. But even if he had been single the last couple years doesn’t mean girls didn’t flirt with him. Kai had a high enough self-esteem to know he was attractive.

“Sorry the only girl interested in you won’t put out.” Damon said in a sorry-not-sorry tone. Kai rolled his eyes and walked ahead of the vampire. He needed to leave before he could yank that daylight ring off of him and leave the vampire to burn.

“What are you looking for?” Kai called after Bonnie who had the instrument raised against the sunlight. He tried to ignore how the action made her skirt raise up just the tiniest bit.

“The best place to perform the spell.” 

“I found it!” She called out. Also why wasn’t Damon a little bit more suspicious about Bonnie? Everyday was the same so how could she just now find the best spot for the spell?

“It’s somewhere over there,” She pointed to the forest, in the direction of the Armory. “We’ll have to get there before a major celestial event, I suggest the eclipse because well, duh.”

As if on cue, a shadow covered the Earth. 

“And now we’re too late. Check your watches. We have to be ready at this time tomorrow.” She clapped her hands and jumped up. “I can’t believe this is really happening.” She smiled. 

“I’m going to cook something, any suggestions, allergies?” Bonnie asked happily, walking into the boarding house. “I’m going to make a feast as a celebration so don’t eat anything before this.”

“Let me help. I’ll be damned if I let you do all the work.” Kai offers.

“What a gentleman,” Bonnie teased. She knew he was suspicious of her but she’d prefer if he would just ask her outright rather than tip toe around the issue. “But I promise I won’t poison you. I’ve had years to perfect a rotisserie chicken that won’t give you salmonella.”

Kai found himself smiling. “I insist.” He leaned in closer to the shorter girl’s ear. “Don’t leave me alone with Damon.”

Bonnie giggled when the vampire glared at Kai. “Fine, add it to my good deeds for the day.”

\---

The two of them were waiting for the oven to beep when Bonnie spoke up.

“You’re trying to figure out if I’m trustworthy or not so I’d appreciate it if you’d straight up ask me.”

Kai chuckled and turned his head to the shorter girl next to him. “How’d you know?”

Bonnie turned to him and crossed her arms, knife still in hand and a playful look on her face. “You’re not exactly subtle. You kept looking over at me while cooking and I know I’m cute but I’m not that cute. I can read you like a book.”

“Alright,” He turns to face her. “Why don’t you give it a try. What have I been telling you?”

Bonnie looked surprised for a moment then smiled. 

“You’re not untalented, just afraid of using your powers. Quite frankly, you wouldn’t mind giving it all up. But you’ve found yourself wrapped up in business involving vampires and this world so you have figure out how to use your powers anyway. Not for any particular power hungry reason but to protect someone.” She tilted her head to the side as if she couldn’t fathom the idea of protecting someone.” Bonnie continues leaning towards him with a determined expression. “You’ve been taking care of everyone but yourself and you’re always trying to prove your worth. Like every other night including this one, you’re cooking a meal for a vampire who couldn’t care less for you. But you’ve been eating pork rinds for breakfast and lunch for weeks because you were tired of serving others and it’s your comfort food. Why, I have no idea because that stuff is disgusting.” 

Kai lets out a bark of laughter. “You get all of that off a bag of pork rinds?”

“Like I said, you’re not subtle.” She smiled back. “And you were eating pork rinds for weeks.”

“Wanna know what I think?” Kai said standing over her. “The game is just beginning.”

Bonnie lets out a chuckle and doesn’t break eye contact. “Why don’t you tell me all about me?”

Kai takes a step back. The boredom of girls is a dangerous thing, he recalls reading somewhere. Kai needs to figure out how dangerous this particular girl is without letting her know so he tells her half his observations.

“Despite your perky deposition you’re secretly very sad because you’re bored and that’s given you a lot of time to think. Think about what brought you here because you know you deserve it but you don’t want to admit that. Think about who you really are because you don’t think you’ve actually changed. You’re just bored and want something new to think about. Like a stranger’s obsession with pork rinds, which by the way are delicious.” Bonnie purses her lips but says nothing. “We gave you what you really needed all these years you’ve been trapped here.”

“And what’s that?”

“The unexpected.” Kai said. “You found something different and latched onto it like a kid with a shiny new toy.”

“Is that all?” Her face remains neutral but he can see in her eyes that she’s a little bit impressed.

“Unlike you I didn’t have months to stalk me,” He said then leaned closer. “Do you still have your powers?”

Bonnie told him. “Sometimes I had all the power in the world, most days I could barely light a candle. For some reason, since I met you, my magic is slowly building up again.” The confession made Kai’s heart soar but he refused to show it. “How did you know?”

“When I was looking for the Ascendant, I felt magic in the air from both you and the Ascendant.” Kai told her.

The oven beeped and Kai bent down to take his dish out to cool.

“Does this mean I’m worthy of your trust now?” Bonnie asked as she watched him.

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Such honesty.” Bonnie smiled.

\---

When Bonnie was nine she was resentful of the fact she had yet to show any talent for witchcraft. Abby was eleven and had training for magic every weekend with their mother. This left Bonnie to her own devices for most of the weekend. She was a fairly popular girl in her class so she would sometimes spend her weekends at slumber parties with other girls. Her popularity was a small price to pay in exchange for being powerless, but Bonnie would prefer both.

“Have you seen my sleeping bag?” Bonnie asks as she walks into the kitchen. “I thought I left it by the door.”

Abby looked bashful. “Yeah, sorry. I dropped my drink on it. It’s in the wash.”

“Are you serious?” Bonnie exclaimed. She glanced at the clock. “I have to be there in ten minutes!”

“Calm down,” Abby told her. “You can be a little late to your party.”

“That’s not the point!” Bonnie screamed and stomped her foot. “You could have used magic to remove the stain! Instead, you decide to use the wash and make me late!”

“I forgot the spell.” Abby said, which only made Bonnie even more furious.

“ _ Forgot _ ? Forgot?” How ungrateful could her sister be? Abby had magic for years. She practiced every weekend with their mother. The two of them practiced so much that sometimes Bonnie wondered if they forgot about her. And now her sister is just squandering chances to use her magic. “You FORGOT?”

“Bonnie, you’re being stupid!” Abby yelled. “It’ll be done soon. Stop freaking out.”

“I’m not FREAKING OUT!” Bonnie screamed. Abby rolled her eyes and turned away but Bonnie was not going to let her sister go just yet. Bonnie grabbed her sister’s arm and dug her nails in. Abby screamed in pain but Bonnie was just getting started. 

She squeezed harder, enjoying how she could feel her sister’s bones through all the layers of fabric and meat. It was then that Bonnie could feel her body fill with energy, her nerves singing at the sensation. The action lit her veins on fire and filled her lungs with air. Was this magic? Bonnie focused on the feeling, pulling as much magic from her sister as possible, chasing the sensation. Abby was sobbing hysterically now but Bonnie didn’t care. She needed more.

“Bonnie, stop!” Sheila comes running in and pulls her youngest daughter away. “What were you doing?”

Bonnie took a moment to shake herself out of her daze to see her mom holding Abby’s crying body. 

“I don’t know,” Bonnie said truthfully and blissfully.

“Abby, go upstairs.” Sheila told her eldest daughter. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

“I felt magic.” Bonnie said, smiling. “That’s what it was right? The energy I took from Abby?” 

To test her theory Bonnie said a spell she heard her mom once say and the candles in the kitchen were lit. She jumped up and clapped her hands. “I’m a real witch now.” Her smile was so big she felt her face tear into two.

“No, Bonnie.” Sheila said sternly. “What you did was wrong.”

Bonnie tilted her head. “But it didn’t feel wrong.” She has magic now, why isn’t her mom happy as when Abby got her powers? What did she do wrong that Abby always got right?

“You’re a siphon, Bonnie. You have to be careful of what you’re doing. You need to stop.”

_ Stop _ ? Stop? Why would she need to stop? This is power. This is strength. This is magic.

“Why should I deny who I am?”

\---

The three sat around the table eagerly digging into the meal Bonnie and Kai had prepared.

“You know,” Damon said. “I’m starting to like you more than your twin. Your magic sucks but your cooking is amazing.”

Bonnie put her fork down. “You have a twin?”

“Yeah the less useless witch of the two.” Damon answered for Kai.

“Dude, I literally just made you dinner.” Kai said, offended.

Bonnie ignored Damon and turned to Kai. “You seem awfully calm about being the less powerful twin.”

Kai raised a brow. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Aren’t you in the Gemini Coven?” Bonnie asked.

“In name only, I guess.”

“Hasn’t your mother told you what happens to the twins in your family?”

“My mom didn’t even tell me I was a witch until high school.”

Bonnie pursed her lips, as if thinking, then shrugged.

Kai looked at Bonnie, who still hadn’t responded. “Is there something wrong with Gemini twins?”

Bonnie blinked and told him, “There’s an old Gemini secret involving twins. Something involving power and magic. I wasn’t part of them so I wouldn’t know though.”

Something wasn’t right with her. How could someone have this much knowledge of his family without being a part of it?

“What coven were you a part of?” Kai asked. He’s heard of a few, maybe by narrowing down where she’s from he could figure out who she is.

“I wasn’t part of one, not technically.”

“All witches have covens.” Damon says, confused. “That’s where you get your powers.”

Bonnie shook her head. “Not my family. We just had each other.”

The way she said ‘family’ made Kai’s heart clench. He missed his mom and his brother and Jeremy and Elena and Caroline and Matt and Tyler and for some odd reason, Alaric. He had only been away from them for a few months and he felt weak without them. How much more pain must Bonnie be in for her to be away from her family for at least a few years.

“Weird.” Damon says.

“I have too much energy to stay still,” Kai says to change the topic. “What do you do for fun around here?” He asks the witch.

This makes Bonnie perk up. “Come on, let me show you something.” 

“I’ll take that as my cue to leave.” Damon says, standing up. “Use protection you two.”

Kai flips his retreating figure the bird.

“Let’s get out of here.” Bonnie tells him.

The two stood up and walked around town until stopping in front of a gated community. They hop the fence fairly easily and stop in front of the larger homes.

“This is the nicest house in the entire neighborhood.” Bonnie tells him as they walk up the front yard. “I plan on living in a place like this once we get out. I’m gonna travel first but when I settle down I’m gonna buy a place like this.” She spreads her hands out wide.

“You haven’t traveled yet?” Kai asks. If he had been in this place as long as she had- however long that is- his first instinct would have been to travel. Bonnie opens the door of the house easily.

“Yeah but I imagine going around the world filled with people and technology is vastly different than traveling here.” She spins to face him in the house’s foyer. Kai would feel bad for asking if not for her smile. “I can’t wait to get out of here, meet new people, travel the world.”

Bonnie leads him to the kitchen, an impossibly nice area with cleanliness only achieved through the lack of residents. 

“I can’t wait to get out of here either,” Kai tells her. “I’m going to buy myself food instead of cooking it myself.”

“Oh I hadn’t even thought about that.” Bonnie says, climbing on the countertop to grab wine glasses on the shelf. “It would be so good to eat a cake again.”

“You haven’t eaten cake in years?” Kai asked, bewildered as he grabbed a bottle of wine from the kitchen wine rack. “This place truly is hell.”

Bonnie hops down and has a couple of wine glasses in her hands. “Well the company isn’t that bad.”

Kai smiles, trying not to be charmed by the short girl. “You like hanging out with Damon?”

“God no,” She sets the glasses down and pretends to gag. “I change my mind. There is only one good thing about this place now.”

“And what’s that?” He laughs and walks closer to her, pouring her a glass. It was refreshing to find someone who hated Damon as much as him.

“The one good thing about this place is-” Bonnie picks up the wine and takes a small sip and throws the glass on the ground. The wine stains the floor like  blood. “-The lack of consequences.” 

She holds out another glass, offering him a chance to destroy. 

Kai looks at the glass warily before grinning, never breaking eye contact. He accepts the glass and throws it on the ground. For a moment, Kai panics and wonders where the mop is. Then he remembers the world’s reset. The thought sends a thrill through him.

Bonnie throws another glass on the ground and Kai mimics her movements until there are no more glasses left to break.

“Let’s break some more shit.” Kai says with a grin and Bonnie smiles back. He has such a nice smile. She grabs the mostly full wine bottle by the neck and smashes it against the glass cabinets, breaking both the bottle and the cabinets. Kai picks up the other bottle and throws it against the wall, breaking it to pieces. Bonnie pulls two knives out of the drawer and hands one to him.

“Let’s go to the living room,” She smiles and Kai follows. In the living room they find a tacky suede couch and pillows. Bonnie wastes no time destroying the couch. Kai joins her and the two slash and stab the ugly couch until there is nothing left but feathers. The two collapse atop the piles of feathers to catch their breath. 

“You seemed like you needed to let some steam out.” Bonnie says, the two of them facing each other. And she’s right. Kai has had that mask placed firmly on his face since he snapped at Damon and this was the first time he let it all out. 

“I think I still need to let some more energy out.” Kai smiles and Bonnie mirrors him and gets up.

She runs away and returns with two baseball bats. Bonnie tosses one to Kai and immediately swings to hit a vase. She knocks down all the glass knick knacks on the table in front of the television then slams her bat into said television. Kai should not find it as hot as he does.

Bonnie blows some hair out of her face and smiles at Kai over her shoulder. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”

Kai picks up the bat and smashes a window, again and again until the window has broken into pieces. He turns his attention to the glass table and makes quick work of that as well. The pair ran around the house, destroying it and everything in their path. Eventually the house has nothing left to offer so the two collapse onto the ruined mattress, the feathers flying when their bodies jump on it, and laugh. 

“Hey, let’s burn this place to the ground.” Kai says in between laughter.

Bonnie looks at him with wide eyes and Kai wonders if he made a mistake. Before he can take it back, Bonnie is smiling at him.

“With matches or magic?” She asks. Bonnie tried to hide her glee but she failed as her smile almost split her face.

“Why not both?” He says and they run out of the room giggling. 

When he walks out of the house, Bonnie staying inside to look for matches, Kai steps on a newspaper. It’s the same newspaper that has been delivered to Mystic Falls everyday so he paid it no mind until the headline caught his attention. 

_ Fire in Portland Claims the Lives of Seven _

Bonnie mentioned something about Portland so he picks up the paper and reads the article. 

_ A house party ends in disaster with one survivor named Joshua Parker. _

Like a bucket of water, he is drenched with regret. He was right not to trust her. God, he was right not to trust her. The first thing Bonnie had asked him was if Joshua Parker was still the coven leader. It didn’t make sense at the time but now-

Bonnie walks out of the house waving a box of matches. Kai swallows and tries not to panic as she stands next to him on the sidewalk across the house.

“We’d better get outta here before Damon comes looking for us.” Kai tells her.

“Sure. And before I forget- destroying this house was the most fun I’ve ever had in this place.” Bonnie tells him with a sweet smile. His mind is screaming at him not to think of how pretty her smile is.

“We can set it on fire together.” Kai tells trying to keep his voice even. 

The suggestion sends butterflies to Bonnie’s stomach. She lights the match and throws it at the house. A small fire catches on the front porch. Kai says the spell for fire and the house is engulfed in flames. He faces Bonnie and finds her face looks beautiful against the warm glow of the flames. He was attracted to this. He feels sick. What makes him even more sick is the fact he finds the flames beautiful as well. 


	2. Baby Can’t You See...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--- Thank you so much for your comments in the first chapter- that’s the most comments I’ve ever had for the first chapter of a fic. I know you all were looking forward to Dark!Bonnie but she’s not super prominent in this chapter. Bonnie is pretty light hearted right now but that’s because she’s being smart and doesn’t want to lose her ticket outta the Prison World. You catch more flies with honey and all that. It is pretty Kai-centric simply because I’m setting up who Bonnie is as a character. It’s to help you, the readers, understand who she is and help me, the writer, properly characterize her. But don’t worry, you will see her dark side soon. 
> 
> Warning for: The mentioned murder of a pregnant woman. Also possible ableism- Kai thinking he’s a psychologist after taking one (1) psychology class in high school so old and probably inaccurate definitions of psychopath and sociopath will be used. Bonnie is not written to be a psychopath or a sociopath because I do not have a degree in Psychology and don’t want to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Witches just have a different moral code than other people that I will get into later. 
> 
> However, I am basing Bonnie’s character with how she has been written in fanfiction, Carla from Elite, Villanelle from Killing Eve, Elektra from Daredevil, Carl from Shameless, and Alice Morgan from Luthor- the last four have been written as Hollywood’s version of psycho/sociopaths so I don’t know how effective I am at avoiding stereotypes are. But I am making her a complex character because I have a thing for writing complex female characters. Still don’t know what I’m doing with Kai though.

Kai Parker has always kept people at arm’s length. He liked to think of himself as a cautious person, his small circle of friends thought of him as paranoid. Some could blame it on the fact he never knew his father, some could blame it on the high death rate in Mystic Falls. Kai liked to blame it on it just being a part of his personality.

Kai was twelve years old when he met his mom’s first boyfriend since their dad left. The man was a single dad of one of Jake’s teammates and brought sliced oranges to every game. Jake liked him for that reason. Kai would sit next to him during Jake’s games and exchange short, polite conversation with the man. His mom and the man broke up six months later when he got a job offer in South Carolina. Jake and Jo cried together while Kai handed them tissue boxes.

When Kai was seventeen a girl in his American History class asked him out. She was kind and attractive- honey colored hair, tall, button nose- but Kai rejected her anyway. Between schoolwork, taking care of the house, and whatever hijinks the Mystic Falls Gang got into, he had no time for a relationship. But Jake gave him shit for it so the next day Kai asked her out to the Grille. Turns out waiting twenty-four hours was too long as she already found herself another date, a soccer player with a scholarship to NYU.

Kai was eighteen when he died. Kai felt a jolt of pain and woke up a ghost. He saw the world go on without him. Everyone, save for Jeremy and Jake and Jo, mourned Kai for a week then it was business as usual. Matt would stop by the Parker house to help the family, maybe leave a casserole in the kitchen. Jeremy would play video games by himself and cry for his best friend when he crossed the finish line in Mario Kart. Jake would sit in Kai’s old room, studying spells and pretend his brother was still there. Jo would find herself scrubbing the dishes and crying because dinner was not as good as Kai’s cooking. But everyone else? Elena was dealing with her love triangle nonsense, Caroline was dealing with vampirism, and Tyler was off doing sports or something. Kai didn’t care about him but the werewolf never approached Jake to ask how he was doing so it didn’t matter. Even Jo, Jake, and Jeremy stopped crying for him eventually because there was even more trouble in Mystic Falls. Saving the town was better than mourning the useless twin. 

Jake did eventually manage to resurrect his brother with the help of a spell Jo received from the Gemini library so Kai was back to the land of the living. Everyone gave him a big hug and pretended they were so relieved he was back. Kai knew they were lying- he had seen it with his own eyes- but he pretended he didn’t and slipped the mask on. It fell off only once but that slip up made him tie the mask even tighter and push away his friends even more. 

\---

When the two went back to the Salvatore Boardinghouse, Kai made a beeline to Damon’s room. Luckily, the vampire was awake so Kai quickly shut the door and locked it.

Damon looked up in surprise. “What’s wrong? She give you a kiss on the cheek and make you ruin your pants?”

Kai didn’t have time to dignify his taunts with a response. “She’s a murderer.”

“Come again?”

“Bonnie,” He thrust the newspaper, which he had been keeping in his backpocket away from Bonnie, into Damon’s hands. “She murdered seven people-- the only survivor was Joshua Parker.”

It took Damon a second to recognize the name. “The Gemini coven leader she asked about?”

Kai nodded. “I didn’t recognize the name at first,” Kai flipped the newspaper to the picture of Joshua Parker. “But that’s my grandfather.” He pressed down on the black and white photo of a middle aged man. “That’s why she was so interested in me, she thought I’d have insider knowledge of the Geminis.”

“Knew there was something up with her.” Damon muttered and Kai rolled his eyes. “Are you going to confront her about this?”

“What do you mean, am  _ I _ going to confront her?

“I am willing to overlook this-  _ for now _ -” Damon adds on when Kai gives him a look. “If this means I can get home.”

“We can’t let a murderer walk out of a place clearly designed for her.” Kai stresses. “She could kill again.”

“Maybe she’s redeemed herself,” Damon suggests.

Kai thinks back to an hour ago. “I don’t think you can make up for killing several people.”

“How are you even sure it’s her anyway?” Damon asks, reading the newspaper again. There is no ‘Bonnie’ mentioned in the article and while there is a similarity between her and the mother and daughter who died, it’s not concrete enough evidence.

“It’s a feeling. I mean, she’s the one who said the Ascendant was in Oregon and kept dodging our questions how long she’s been here.” Kai said through his cloud of irritation.

“You’re not a psychic, you’re just paranoid.” Damon says, irritated. “You know what, why don’t you do a little investigating, try to see if she’s as bad as you say. Then when you figure out she’s not, we can get out of here.”

Even through his cloud of irritation, Kai can see when Damon has a good idea. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Good,” The vampire throws himself on his bed. “So once you find out she’s  _ not _ some monster and ease your moral soul, we can get out of here.”

Kai leaves but makes sure to slam the door extra hard. 

“Yikes,” A voice down the other end of the hallway says. Kai snaps his head to the left to see Bonnie, dressed in an oversized flannel shirt buttoned halfway so he could see her bellybutton and striped pajama shorts. “What happened?”

“Um, Damon just,” Kai rubbed his face with his hands. “Is making me stressed. I’m not great at magic so we’re just worried we’re not going to go home.”

Bonnie walked up to him and touched his bare arm. The warmth of her hand made his nerves sing. “Hey, we are getting out of here. It might take days, it might take weeks but we are getting out of here. Darrell can complain all he wants but we are not getting out of here without you.”

Her words may be the kindest thing anyone had ever said to Kai regarding his magic. But Kai took Psychology 100 in high school. He only needed the credits so he didn’t invest a lot of his time studying. But he did recall a section on Psychopathy under the Abnormal Psych section of the course- psychopaths are incredibly charming. They will do and say whatever they want to achieve their goals.

“If you want,” Bonnie continues. “I could teach you some magic. The spell we’ve got to cast is pretty big and if you’re as inexperienced as you say, the spell could take a lot out of you.”

Kai smiled. “I would like that.”

\---

Kai and his brother were self-taught with their magic. When their mother first revealed to them about their magic, she didn’t teach them much and with her many shifts at the hospital, she hardly had time to teach them at all. As the threats in Mystic Falls grew, so did their need for more powerful spells. The twins would look up spells online or try to contact their various cousins to get access to their grimoires. However, while Jake practiced almost daily, Kai practiced how to do spells every other day, maybe more if Jake found himself in trouble. Given that they lived in Mystic Falls, Kai also found himself practicing magic everyday. Jake specialized in offensive moves while Kai was more of a defensive witch. If Jake ever stumbled through a spell, Kai would be there to correct it.

Kai Parker would never admit it out loud but he liked the thrill magic gave him. It was like adrenaline in his veins everytime he said a spell. He enjoyed the joy it gave the people he loved when he used it. He also enjoyed, and perhaps this was the remnants of his goth phase, the endless dark possibilities. He had the ability to snap the neck of anyone who bothered him. The ability to take whatever he wanted without paying. He could get away with things, free of consequence. But the kind, moral part of him always shut down these thoughts with shame.

“Your form is wrong,” Bonnie says and places her hands on Kai to adjust his position. She runs her hands along his shoulders and chest so he can stand up straight, a gesture that sends shivers down his spine, and along his forearm and fingers so he can relax his form, a gesture that forces him to suppress some dirty thoughts. “Doing this spell requires absolute perfection, if your thumb is in the wrong place by even an inch, you could turn the forest into a pile of pudding.” She laughs and takes a step back. “Now try it.”

Practicing magic with Bonnie, as it turns out, means practicing until it is exactly perfect. Throughout the week, Bonnie will wake him up so they can get started on their lessons. They practice early in the morning, after meals, and when the sun finally sets. They begin with basic control spells and make their way to more difficult spells. Bonnie has a collection of grimoires all shrunken to fit inside her backpack, some from her own family, some from the Gemini Coven’s library, and some from schools she found in Canada, Korea, and Mexico. She’s a strict teacher, but also an encouraging and patient one. He tried to ignore her beautiful features but that forced him to pay attention to her intelligence. Against his will, Kai finds himself liking her with every lesson. 

“It may not seem like it,” Bonnie says during their lunch break. “But we’re in the best place to teach you magic.”

“How so?” Kai asks with a mouthful of his sandwich.

“The Gemini originally made this place a training ground for witches.” Bonnie explains. “You’d take young witches to a dimension that looks exactly like ours without the risks of hurting others. My mom would put aside every weekend to teach me magic. She’d sit me at the dinner table at the crack of dawn so I could practice levitating feathers. Didn’t matter how much homework or how many parties there were that weekend, I would attend those lessons.”

“Why feathers?” Kai asked, hoping for Bonnie to reveal a little bit about herself.

“It was a great way to practice control until I could graduate to heavier objects. We practiced in our kitchen so if I broke anything, it would stay broken. But in here, whatever gets broken, set on fire, or shattered isn’t real so no real harm is done. Actually, now that I think about it, they must have used this place to get out their aggression. Like we did when we destroyed that house,” Bonnie reminds him. Kai feels ashamed at the reminder. “We went back the next day and it was still standing. Of course, the Gemini had to bastardize that concept by making it a prison but I think it can work for us still.”

Kai made a mental note of how Bonnie kept making small insulting statements about the Gemini, something someone would miss if they weren’t looking. “How exactly did they bastardize it?” 

Bonnie inwardly curses herself for using the term ‘bastardize’ but continues to act natural. “There are a million temporary places built for teaching purposes. It’s a lot less work and immediately shatters once everyone leaves. To make a place like this, you need a lot of power to make it identical to the normal world and make sure whoever’s in here is kept in here. It’s not meant to be like this. They basically turned a school into a prison... which makes sense since school is a prison. And now I’m trapped in here until someone rescues me.”

“How do you know so much about the Gemini?” Kai wasn’t jealous… well he was jealous but he was doing his best not to show it. But in his curious, jealous state he managed to miss the fact she said she was a prisoner. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to study up. I’m fluent in like ten different languages now and would be a master witch if I had magic half the time.” She’s stalling, Kai knows and he knows she knows. “Plus my mom was friends with a few of them and they told me a few things.”

“So what coven are you in?” He repeats Damon’s question from when they met.

“Damon already asked this, remember? It was just me and my family. I stayed with the Geminis for a while but I was never  _ in _ the Gemini Coven.”

“But you have all this Gemini stuff.” Kai presses.

Bonnie pushes back. “They’re the biggest coven on the west coast. I couldn’t go anywhere from Anchorage to Santa Monica without bumping into at least one house owned by a Gemini witch. And if I happened to take a grimoire or two, it’s not like anyone is there to miss it.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.” Kai responds, pretending to be grateful and bringing their little match to a close. “Because these lessons are really helping me out.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, you’re a little green behind the ears but still mega powerful and if helping you gets us out of here faster, I’m all for it. ” Bonnie smiles and places her hand on his. “And I happen to like spending time with you.” 

Kai feels his heart beat a little bit faster. 

Damn his heart.

\---

His magic curled around her, a siren call tempting her to use it. 

Absorb it.

Bonnie wants to touch him and drain him dry, let the pleasure of his magic overwhelm her.

But she can’t.

She has to seem trustworthy. She has to keep up the lies. She had to play nice.

He is the only person here capable of setting her free.

Ever since she found him and Damon in her prison, she routinely snuck into Kai’s room to take some of his magic away. She did it painlessly and quietly, as to not alert the vampire a few doors down but there were so many times she wanted to just take it all. Just drain Kai dry and use his magic as if it were her own without caring that he is the only one who could take her out of this prison. But, if being in the Prison World taught her anything, it’s that patience is a virtue.

So she chatted with Kai, dodging his questions with ease as she tried not to drool over the kitchen table while she looked at the magic swirling around his body.

\---

“So find out her dastardly deeds loverboy?” Damon asks casually while throwing paper planes on the front lawn. “Or are you finally realizing you’re keeping us here because you’re afraid of having to compete for your crush?”

Kai pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t go over his lack of crush on the pretty murderer they’re stuck with Damon right now. “She knows I’m onto her but I think she’s chalking it up to general paranoia.”

“Once again, your personality drives away another pretty girl.” Damon throws another paper plane. “Are you done playing detective and practicing magic now? Are we finally able to go home?”

Kai ignores the question and takes the newspaper article out again. “She knows all about the Gemini despite not being part of the coven. And we  _ just  _ so happen to be repeating the same day these people died in a fire? I’m telling you, this doesn’t add up.”

“Hey boys, what’s up?” The boys look up to see Bonnie walking to them with a smile. She notices the newspaper in Kai’s hand and peers around to look at it. “Oh you finally found out why I’m here.” Her expression doesn’t change.

Her casual honesty is frightening. Even Damon stops molding his paper plane to look at her with wide eyes.

“You killed them!” Kai screams.

“Oh, Kai,” She stepped towards him and placed a hand on his cheek. The unexpected gentleness and warmth made his cheek tingle. “Does that really change anything?”

He leaned into her hand, her soft, tiny hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. His jaw fit perfectly against her hand and her thumb rubbed his cheek comfortingly. Then he pushed her away with disgust. 

“You killed them.” He said coldly. Bonnie looked surprised for a second but got over it quickly. She casually leaned against a column.

“Not all of them.” Bonnie shrugged. “Joshua’s daughter, Jo, was just hospitalized. And I never touched any of her siblings.”

Damon’s eyes widened. “Jo Parker?”

Kai’s mom had mentioned something about a surgery once, stating it was her reason for pursuing the field. “You tore out my mom’s spleen?” He cried.

Bonnie looked at him in surprise. “Jo’s your mom? Huh, wow. Don’t worry,” She waved her hand. “Your mom was always nice to me so I only took out her spleen when she tried to stop me. If she was as awful as the rest of them, I would’ve burned her with them.”

“How could you have killed them? You don’t look older than twenty.” Damon says.

Bonnie smiles and turns her head from side to side like she’s modeling. “Well thank you. I found this great moisturizer.” Neither boy looked amused by her joke. “Magic. I’m young because of this place’s magic.”

“Who else did you kill?” Kai asked, not recognizing the other names on the list, except his grandmother Melinda. 

Bonnie looked at the newspaper and pointed at each picture of the victims. “My mom and my sister, Abby. That’s my cousin Lucy, and her mom, Jackie, and my Uncle Raymond and some Geminis? Lydia something and Melinda Parker. Joshua Parker got away unfortunately but the rest of them? Yeah, I lit them up like the Fourth of July.” She lets out a little laugh. “Get it? Because they used to burn witches at the stake? Not at Salem though, that’s a bit of a misnomer. They hanged Salem witches but I didn’t wanna do that because I’m a little weak and well, the  _ implications _ ...” 

“You’re a psychopath,” Kai said in horror. Bonnie waved off the label. It’s something she’s been called before and will be called again so she’s learned to just deal with it. Plus, it’s not like it’s actually true. She’s looked at the psychology books, she doesn’t qualify.

“You’re not gonna tell me your tragic life story? Convince us you’re a good girl who’s done some wrong?” Damon scoffed. Perhaps he spent too much time with Elena and wanted to find the person beneath the monster. Something to justify Bonnie’s actions. But Kai could not be like that. He at one point in the last week had stupidly fallen for her. Now he could only see Bonnie’s misdeeds. 

Bonnie shook her head and scoffed. “No, what good would that do? I’m not looking for forgiveness. I’m just looking for revenge and a way out. Besides, it’s not like I killed  _ all _ the Bennetts. There’s plenty of us running around.” 

“Who else do you plan on killing?” Kai asks.

“Whoever was responsible for putting me here.” She answers plainly.

“You mean my family,” Kai stated flatly. “How can you be so nonchalant about this?” 

Bonnie crossed her arms. “I’m an adult, I make my own decisions and I don’t intend on regretting any of them.” 

It was admirable how sure of herself she is in Kai’s eyes but he could not let himself be charmed. “You’re a psychopath.” He repeats.

“And you’re so perfect?” Bonnie raises a brow. “You hang around vampires who’ve got a higher body count than me. And don’t forget- it wasn’t my idea to burn down that house. That was  _ all _ you.”

“It was a lapse in judgement.” Kai defended himself. “Had I known I was with an arsonist, I wouldn’t have even brought it up.”

“I’m sorry you did what?” Damon asked bewildered but the two ignored him. They could only focus on hating each other.

Bonnie says. “It was  _ your _ idea, so I’m not the only arsonist here, am I?”

“Do you even have magic?” Kai asked, wondering how much of what she told him- no,  _ them- _ was a lie. She did say she knew about them for months before they knew about her. She could have stored her magic away until the time came to stab them in the back. Kai had never heard of something like that but it could be possible.

She exhaled. “Yes and no. I’m a siphon.”

“What’s a siphon?” Damon asked.

“Witches who take power instead of making it themselves.” She grabs Kai’s hand and smiles. “Wanna try it?” 

She’ll make it hurt this time. She tried playing nice but if they weren’t going to go along with that... Well brute force has yet to fail the witch.

Kai yanked his hand away and turned to his friend. “Damon, we can’t let her out of here.”

The vampire scoffed. “Why not? If she can get us out of here, I don’t see why we shouldn’t. It’s not like she’s hurting anyone we know. The way I see it, all three of us can go free as long as I get out of here.”

“She’s a murderer! Who plans on killing again!” Kai yelled before realizing who he was talking to. “Right, I forgot. Morality is foreign to you.”

“He  _ did _ kill that pregnant lady.” Bonnie pipes up. “I heard him talking about it. Compelled his uncle-nephew to forget all about it. Which is like,  _ way _ harsh man. I may have killed my family and two randos but at least there were no pregnancies involved.”

“You did what?” Kai yells, eyes wide at Damon who, to his credit, looks ashamed.

But the blue eyed vampire gets over it as Damon rolls his eyes and changes the topic. “Do you want to be stuck here forever?”

“Did you miss the part where she said she was going to kill my family.”

“It’s not like you’ve ever met them.” Damon points out and Kai wants to tear his hair out in frustration.

“We are not letting you out of here.” Kai tells her.

“You wouldn’t even know how to get out of here if it wasn’t for me.” Bonnie growls, standing in front of him. 

“We would have figured it out eventually.” Kai challenges looking down at her green eyes.

“Unlikely.” She says. It comes to her attention that she is close enough to kiss Kai if she stood on her tiptoes. She could kiss him right now and take his powers. But she still wants to appear trustworthy so she turns away from him.

“You are not leaving without me.” Bonnie grabs Damon’s hand and focuses on his daylight ring. His finger burns from the item being siphoned but Bonnie was too focused to make it painless. She needs to show she is not a force to be reckoned with. Damon snatched away his hand but he was too late. He had begun to smoke in the sun and Bonnie could feel magic coursing through her. Damon runs away from the sun and inside the boarding house. Damon’s wounds slowly heal on his face as he glares at the witch from behind the door.

“I just drained your ring of its magic.” Bonnie calls Damon and turns to face Kai. “So unless you wish for your friend to become barbeque, you’re not leaving without me.” She smirked and gave them a look that said ‘who’s the boss now?’ 

In a sweet voice, Bonnie said, “The choice is yours.”

She leaves the property with a smile and Kai wants to scream.

\---

People called her a people pleaser and so what if she was? Bonnie found no fault in loving attention and hating being alone. It made her work harder and be more social.

Whereas Abby was prone to daydreaming during lessons, Bonnie was a strict practitioner of magic. Abby was a little more advanced than Bonnie by virtue of age but Bonnie would not lag behind her older sister. Sheila Bennett loved that her eldest daughter was so free spirited and loved that her youngest was so hardworking. She kept them up from dawn until dusk every weekend for her daughters to practice and learn magic. Most of the spells she taught them were practical and harmless like cooking spells, cleaning spells, gardening spells, and telekinesis. Sheila taught them how to harness their psychic powers as well but since that was easy for Abby, it was a lesson that often went ignored. Bonnie practiced every single spell until she either perfected it or she ran out of magic.

Bonnie did not have as much power inside of her as her sister. Sheila lent her as much power as she could but in Bonnie’s attempts to catch up with her sister, the young witch exhausted it quickly. This left her levitating feathers and heating up pots and pans to conserve energy or studying up on her family history when she had no magic. Nonetheless, Bonnie did love spending time with her family. She had been excluded from practicing magic for so long that any bit of time practicing magic was time well spent.

At school, Bonnie was the Queen B. ever since she was little. A tad bit of an exaggeration because she wasn’t  _ the _ most popular girl in school but she was up there and her name  _ did _ begin with a ‘b.’ She was more of a handmaiden to the popular girls if she were being completely honest with herself. Boys would flock to her so they could go for her friends rather than to her. And her popular friends only went to her when they needed help with stuff. But still… Bonnie was one of the most popular girls in school. Bonnie was a smart student, getting straight As for every subject, a social girl with friends throughout the school hierarchy, and has been a cheerleader and dancer since she was nine. The most popular girl in school was Amanda Heywood, a blonde who hosted a sleepover once a month since elementary school and Bonnie had yet to miss a single sleepover. Bonnie spent so much time at the Heywood House she kept her spare toothbrush there. She would braid the other girls’ hair- they never braided hers- while gossiping about the teachers or watched whatever VHS Amanda rented from Blockbuster. 

Sometimes Bonnie’s magical homelife and popular school life collided with each other. Something Bonnie learned was that if she carefully saved the magic she was given by her mother, she could have magic the whole week. While Bonnie was known as a kind and popular girl, she also had a cruel streak to her. Her friends fed into this cruel streak, whether they knew it or not. Amanda and the rest of Bonnie’s friends would always laugh at whoever fell to misfortune and Bonnie liked making them laugh. Bonnie would use her limited abilities to feed her cruel streak like sometimes levitating a thumbtack onto some poor victim’s seat or pop balloons during the middle school dance or telekinetically writing the wrong notes in someone’s notebook to ensure she had the higher score. One time she even heated a doorknob which gave the teacher second degree burns. 

If Sheila ever became aware of Bonnie’s little ‘tricks’ she would sit her down and give her a stern talking to. The talk usually involved threatening to send Bonnie away if she didn’t shape up. Then on weekends, she would make Bonnie only do simple spells that required what little magic she would give her daughter as punishment. Bonnie would always brush aside the threat of sending her away because it stopped scaring her when she was thirteen.

Then, in Bonnie’s sophomore year of high school, she set a car on fire at school. 

The cheerleaders were having the annual carwash fundraiser and Amanda was apparently having a bad day. Her parents weren’t happy about her grades and banned sleepovers until they improved. Bonnie could understand being upset about Amanda’s only source of power being taken away. She not only relied on Amanda for power at school but also relied on her mother and sister for magic. In fact, her own mom took away her power as punishment for sneaking out to a college party on a school night. Bonnie was forced to levitate feathers all weekend while Abby was learning how to do a locator spell. Amanda batted her baby blues at Bonnie, who found herself unable to say ‘no’. She was, after all, the friend everyone relied on to be responsible. However, Amanda kept putting all the work on Bonnie and that was making the witch’s sympathy run out. 

For the fifth time that day, Amanda shoved a bucket of water into Bonnie’s arms and said she “just like, can’t clean cars right now. So Bon-Bon, could you be a dear and clean the shitty car with those pervs inside? ‘Kay, thanks.” and just walked away to flirt with one of the juniors. 

Said pervs exited their car looking at Bonnie’s brown bikini top and while the young Bennett typically enjoyed the attention from the opposite sex, she had no patience for that today. She channeled her mother and glared at the boys who, to her delight, lost their smiles quickly and tripped over their own feet trying to get out of her line of vision. 

Speaking of her line of vision, Bonnie saw the ground start to smoke up in the corner of her eye. She looked around to see the cause of it- a stray cigarette, Abby, the sun- but saw nothing in sight. Did she have some spare magic left inside of her? She focused on the ground and searched inside of herself for a slimmer of magic. Bonnie found it and cradled it to the front of her conscious and turned the smoke into flames. The best thing about fire is that it’s more reliant on its natural state than on magic. It traveled to the car like a man on a mission and soon the car was covered in flames.

People began to cry out to call for the fire department and run around like headless chickens. The owner of the car fell to his knees in horror. But Bonnie wasn’t relishing in their fear of her powers or even paying attention to them. She was looking at the flames. The way they could bring warmth to people’s lives as easily as they could destroy it. It was hypnotic the way the flames danced on top the car, darkening the metal. Bonnie stood there, amazed.

“Bonnie,” Abby grabbed her sister and forced her to face her. “Bonnie, stop it.”

Bonnie blinked and soon the flames blinked out of existence as well. “What-what’s happening?”

Abby looked at the car, a blackened mess that smelled like burning metal and rubber. Bonnie followed her line of vision and gasped. “Was that me?”

“Yes.” Abby answered in a hollow voice. Then she screamed, “Oh my gosh you’ve been burnt!”

Bonnie looked down at her hands, she was fine. She sent her sister a questioning look but Abby shot her a look that said, ‘just go with it.’

“Oww,” Bonnie cried and hunched over so no one would have to see her lack of injuries.

“We have to go to the hospital now.” Abby said in a loud voice. 

“Bonnie,” Amanda said running over. “Do you want to take my car?”

“No, no,” Abby answered as she took Bonnie to her car. “My car is right there. We’ll drive there.”

“Are you sure-”

“Yes!” Abby told the blonde and threw Bonnie into the backseat. “We’re going to the hospital now!”

As Abby drove, Bonnie felt her stomach sink lower and lower as the car drove closer and closer to home.

\---

“Was I too harsh? Should I have just played the innocent?” Bonnie asks, pacing in a room she was hiding out in. “Darrell or whatever did give me a chance to play the sympathy card, why didn’t I take it? No, you’re right. I couldn’t have kept up the charade for long, one week was already pushing it. I’m pretty sure I have cavities from all the sweet shit I was saying.”

Bonnie sighed and sat on her bed. “I should’ve burned those newspapers before I met them. Would’ve bought me some more time. Being in this place for two decades has made my brain dull.” 

Bonnie laid on her side and popped her head up with one elbow. She smiled brightly. “At least that helped me act clueless, right? Maybe not totally clueless, but it was definitely believable that I was only here for like two years right? Shame I was too preoccupied with cheer to join theater, huh? God, I miss cheering. If they didn’t send me away before sophomore year, I think I could’ve become captain. And I could’ve gone to prom, oh, I wish I went to prom.” 

“The closest the Gemini got to prom was their balls.” Bonnie continued. “And I wasn’t allowed to go because I was an outsider. I was Joshua’s ward for five years, they couldn’t have made an exception at least once? At least Jo was able to sneak me some champagne and take me dress shopping with her.”

Bonnie rolls over to lie flat on her back. “I can’t believe Jo has a kid- two kids actually. Kai looks a lot like her at that age, I wonder why I didn’t see the resemblance before. Though, I gotta wonder how bad of a mom she is if she didn’t bother telling her kids until high school. Like, she knows about the Merge right? And moving here! Back in my day, Mystic Falls was a podunk little town with a Confederate obsession and I was its prized token black cheerleader. Like, Jo  _ did _ listen to me when I talked about this place right? Probably not, actually. I can’t imagine things changed that much since I was locked up. And how the hell do they get involved with vampires?”

Ms. Cuddles stared back blankly. Bonnie laughed. “You know just what I want to hear.”

Bonnie picked her up and held Ms. Cuddles above her. “Oh Ms. Cuddles, I tried so hard to be nice to them. But Kai wanted me to be evil  _ so _ bad. If they want me to be an evil bitch, I guess I have to deliver that to them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will make the next chapter be Bonnie-centric or die trying.  
> How do you guys feel about the flashbacks? Annoying or okay?  
> Can anyone tell me what makes the Bennetts so special? I skimmed through their article on the TVD wiki and all they’re saying is they created the immortality spell and are responsible for giving Ester the vampire recipe. Do they have any special powers unique to only them? Cause as far as I can tell they have connections to nature, their blood is able to activate certain items, and have more witch juice to do more powerful spells but all that can be done by witches with enough training. Expression magic seems to be something any witch with enough power can do so it’s difficult but not impossible. Like did the Bennetts get a day in the limelight without it being a way to serve the white people? Would you guys be offended if I gave the Bennetts their own unique set of magic and evolved from basic witch abilities?


	3. Keep Your Hands to Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick peek into Bonnie’s life and the lessons she learned along the way.
> 
> Also, Bonnie and Damon is a popular ship? Interesting…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the comments on chapter 2! It means a lot!
> 
> This chapter is 22 pages long. Read at your own risk.
> 
> I hope you guys liked this chapter because I acknowledge this isn’t my best work. Writing Bonnie is fairly easy but working the chapter into the story was difficult. I rewrote it at least four times before deciding the fifth was as good as it was gonna get. Let me know if there's any errors because I'm sure there's plenty. 
> 
> TW: Child abuse and Racism. The idea that vampires would be racist comes from conversations with my friends about the Amish. Bonnie’s hatred towards vampires is on a more personal level than it being like ‘they are abominations’ because she was raised to believe she is an abomination. But don’t worry, she’ll kill a bunch of vampires later :)

The first lesson Bonnie was ever taught was how to control her siphoning. During the many days and long hours of her lessons, Bonnie had to wear gloves inside the house to prevent any accidents. The best feeling in the world was taking her gloves off.

“Okay, Bonnie,” Sheila told Bonnie one weekend. “I am going to need you to concentrate on my magic. Think about taking it gently, understand?”

Bonnie nods and takes off her gloves. “Yes mama.”

Sheila offers her arm out to her youngest daughter. Abby watches across the table with interest. Bonnie places her hand on her mom’s arm and thinks of taking her magic. Immediately, her hands glow red and Sheila lets out a pained gasp. Bonnie keeps holding on however, holding onto the feeling of her lungs expanding and her veins singing. This causes her to forget about gently taking her mom’s power. Sheila herself seems to sense this as well and pushes Bonnie off of her.

“Bonnie!” She snaps, catching her breath. “You forgot to focus!”

A little dazed, Bonnie blinks her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She juts out her bottom lip and makes her eyes look a little bigger. She practiced looking sorry and innocent in her bathroom mirror last night. Sheila’s eyes soften and Bonnie knows her practice wasn’t for nothing.

“I’m sorry for snapping, you just have to learn how to concentrate better.” Sheila holds out her arm again. “We will try one more time. Your magic is like fire, Bonnie. It needs to be controlled or it will destroy everyone. Focus on being gentle, like you’re tending to kindling.”

Bonnie latches onto the arm with the word ‘gentle’ repeating over and over again and the image of a campfire on her mind. Her hands flash red again and magic floods her veins. Bonnie looks up at her mother who is, for the first time since practicing magic, not in pain. Sheila’s eyes are closed and she is tense, expecting the pain of siphoning. Magic is still running through Bonnie and her hand is still glowing, making her confused at first. Then she breaks into a wide grin.

“I did it!” Bonnie says happily.

Sheila opens her eyes and gasps. “You did it. Oh my- you did it!” She takes Bonnie’s hand off her arm and scoops her daughter in a big hug. “I’m so proud of you.”

Bonnie can feel the magic inside of her. She wants more, like she’s still hungry. “Let’s try it again.”

“We can do it after the lesson, I need some time to rest, you took a lot out of me.” Sheila puts Bonnie down. “You’re going to float some feathers, it should help with your control.”

Bonnie visibly deflated, though she can feel her mother’s magic inside of her but it’s not enough. She wants more, like a hunger she can not satisfy. In addition, she has been practicing floating feathers for every single lesson. She has control now, why does she need to keep floating feathers?

“Fine,” Bonnie says. 

Another lesson Bonnie had learned as a child- it was easier to pretend to be good and innocent than reveal your true feelings.

\---

“You better get your ass over there and apologize.” Damon says, fuming at the witch as Kai entered the house. Damon’s burns and blisters were healing rather slowly for a vampire but considering an alternative where Damon could have died, Kai ignores it.

“We can’t let her out.” Kai says firmly.

“I think we can.” Damon says. “It’s not like you know anyone she’s gonna kill.”

“You don’t know that. Damon, I cannot let her out of here.”

Damon walks next to him and in a low voice says, “Then don’t. Pretend to get on her good side then stab her in the back once we get out of here. Two birds, one stone.”

Before Kai died he would have been appalled at the idea of murdering someone. But this was post-resurrection Kai. He did what needed to be done. “Fine.” He relented and Damon smiled, like he always did when he got his way. Kai wanted to smack him. Instead he slammed his bedroom door.

He could apologize to Bonnie right away but Kai would rather Damon anxiously wait for a while.

\---

Bonnie decided to hang around the rich side of Mystic Falls. The park she happened to be in was down the street from the house her and Kai burned down last week. Using the magic she took from Damon’s daylight ring, Bonnie was able to remove the furniture in the living room. Bonnie had never siphoned a daylight ring but she could sense the magic inside of the little amulet. Her ancestor was the first to create it so of course she could sense its power. The rings’ magic was to protect vampires from the sun. The spell used to create daylight rings involve light manipulation and solar manipulation. 

The thing about being a siphon is that you are only limited to the magic of the object or person you drain. When she siphoned her family, she got the full extent of her Bennett powers- communication with the spirits, advanced healing abilities, heightened psychic abilities, heightened pyrokinesis, heightened telepathy, heightened telekinesis, and heightened traditional witch magic. There was also the Bennett’s deep connection with nature. While most witches were able to manipulate nature’s elements, none of them did it with as much power as the Bennetts. Bonnie had read of ancestors who summoned lightning to attack their enemies and accelerated the growth of trees to be hundreds of feet tall. Bonnie herself had once cracked open the earth in two when she siphoned her mother. The only ability of the Bennett line Bonnie was unsure she could possess was their inordinate long life. Qetsiyah, Bonnie’s ancestor, was the first to create immortality and although she paid the price for it, that magic was linked to her bloodline. Her ancestors would never achieve immortality as that would cause an unbalance in nature but instead lived longer than the average human. That is, unless they died of unnatural causes like a car accident or murder, the latter of which the Bennetts had a tendency to attract. Bonnie’s mom, sister, aunt, and uncle were not fortunate enough to let themselves enjoy that aspect of their Bennett blood. But Bonnie’s grandmother had lived to be one hundred and fifteen before peacefully dying in her sleep.

Bonnie could only reach the full abilities of the Bennett bloodline when she siphoned from a Bennett witch. When she siphoned from other witches, her inherited Bennett abilities were sidelined by that particular witch’s power. Bonnie’s strength depended on her knowledge of that particular discipline. If the witch she siphoned were, say, had only traditional witch magic but not the ability of resurrection Bonnie would be unable to resurrect someone and only perform traditional magic. Thankfully the Bennetts had a strong influence on magic as many witches had the same, but weaker, abilities. The French Quarter Coven, for example, could communicate with their ancestors and manipulate nature the same way the Bennetts can, the difference being the French Quarter Witches draw on their power from their ancestors which weakens them tremendously. Even the Gemini have similar abilities to the Bennetts as they too have astral projection in the same way the Bennetts can.

Magical items were Bonnie’s most limiting as items tended to have no more than two purposes for existing. Since it was not a human, Bonnie could only use that object’s abilities and not access her family’s powers. But sometimes if Bonnie gets really, really lucky she finds an item created by her family. Damon’s daylight ring, apparently was. If Bonnie finds an object created by her ancestors, her connection to them grants her full access to her Bennett abilities in addition to that object’s magic. Her magic becomes stronger when it’s an object originally made by her ancestors, but copies created by her ancestors work just as well.

Bonnie stood in the sun with her arms spread out, soaking up the rays and the warmth. Her body feels so much lighter and she giggles at the feeling. She can feel the magic in her veins again and her lungs expand with oxygen. Bonnie opens her eyes and relaxes herself.

Bonnie recalls a lesson on magical items. Daylight rings were created by Ester Mikealson with the intention of absorbing the sun’s and blocking it from vampires. For a witch, this ability is useless as the sun is hardly a concern. But for Bonnie, the power of daylight rings are transformed into light manipulation. She’s never had this ability before and she’s absolutely dizzy with the possibilities.

There are a couple of options for Bonnie to choose from with her newfound abilities. She could go batshit with the magic she has complete control over in almost two decades or she could bend the light and make herself invisible so she could spy on the boys again.

Her hedonistic side wins in the end. She’s excited, an emotion she hasn’t experienced since a little after she ended up in the Prison World. The possibilities of what to do with her powers are endless. Besides, she is confident the boys will follow her lead. There is no other way out after all. 

Bonnie thinks of Saturday morning cartoons and the kind of powers the superheroes had. She thinks of the anime girls who turn themselves into beings of pure light and those superheroes who sent bolts of light at their enemies. The witch’s body is soon consumed by light and sends a beam of light to a nearby tree, erasing it from existence for the day. Bonnie breathes heavily, smiling at the rush of power. She sends another bolt of light to a house and marvels at how the light manges to catch some colors, making it look like a rainbow is attacking the house. The house doesn’t catch on fire but Bonnie is too concerned with the colors to care. 

When she had magic, she was rarely allowed to enjoy it. It was only in her veins during lessons or life-saving events. She did try to save as much magic as she could when she was younger but when she lived with the Parkers, they quickly caught on that she was conserving magic so they only gave her the bare minimum required for practice spells. Bonnie never got to be playful with her magic. She could only watch from the outside as other witches her age used their magic for fun.

Bonnie threw another bolt of light at a fountain which allowed for the light to change into a rainbow. She was making up for lost time.

Bonnie recalls a disco ball she found in the Mystic Falls high school gymnasium once and runs towards the school.

\---

When Bonnie was sixteen she went on a roadtrip with Joshua Parker. She had been his ward for about three months, learning how to use her abilities and how to do spells. 

Despite the man’s distaste for siphons, Joshua found Bonnie to be very useful to the Coven. Weapon, Bonnie thinks is the word the man used in passing with the council. In addition to the schooling, Bonnie had private lessons with Joshua where he tested her powers for himself. Which brought them to the road trip they were currently on.

“I am the leader of my coven because I knew what it took to get there.” Joshua spoke. “I worked hard to turn myself into what this coven needs. You may call me a tyrant if you wish, but I am a man who knows what needs to be done. I am the one who makes the difficult choices because I understand the consequences.”

Bonnie was basically ignoring him, watching the rain fall on the window. She enjoyed the rain on long car rides. It had rained on the bus to cheer camp when she was younger and she quietly enjoyed watching the rain fall. Her eyes followed the raindrops as it raced across the window, racing to see which one would make it to the other end first. This habit never left her as she always watched the rain race across windshields during rainy weather. Right now the raindrip she was focusing on had just collided with another raindrop to form one big raindrop.

“Bonnie!” Joshua interrupted her thoughts. She tore away from the window to look at him. “Did you review the man we are visiting?”

Bonnie nods. “Leland Dobson.” She takes out the file, to skim the paper again. “Molly Grey accused him of kidnapping her daughter, Ruth.”

“That’s right. Do you know what I want you to do?”

“You want me to incapacitate him while you figure out if he’s guilty.” Bonnie closed the file. “Shouldn’t, like, an adult do this instead of me? I’m barely trained.”

“Consider this your training.” He makes a left turn. “It would be irresponsible of me to let you siphon your classmates so Leland will have to do. The goal is for you to have enough magic in you so you can participate in class tomorrow.”

“Why can’t I just read your siphoning books? Or absorb you before my lessons?” Bonnie was glad to finally be able to siphon someone and use magic. But after weeks of wearing gloves and practicing without magic, Bonnie was suspicious.

“I can’t risk my life for your lessons Bonnie. I have a duty to my coven to stay alive. And I can’t trust you won’t abuse the lessons in the books. Best let me handle your lessons for right now.” Joshua says in a cold tone as he pulls into a neighborhood. Bonnie raised a brow but did not comment. He was right of course, Bonnie knew she would find darker uses for even the most basic, innocent spells but it still hurt that she wasn’t able to outsmart him.

“I know this seems unorthodox to you but trust me when I say this is what is best for everyone. I became the leader of my coven because of my foresight and intelligence.”

“How did you become the Gemini leader?” Bonnie asked.

“As I’ve told you, studying and harnesses my power is what led me to become the leader.” Joshua says. Bonnie doesn’t completely buy it. Other than him obviously lying to her, Bonnie knows only the Bennetts are capable of magic without sacrifice. Everyone else must find their magical strength in sacrifices, their ancestors, faith, or in numbers. Bonnie is determined to find out which one the Gemini uses.

Joshua pulls into a driveway. “Stand behind me before we enter, then siphon him.”

Joshua rings the doorbell and Leland answers with an annoyed expression. The man in question had long blonde hair, a goatee, and a potbelly. “Can I help you?”

The coven leader speaks. “I’m Joshua Parker. I’ve been asked to check up on you.” 

Leland’s eyes widen and he opens the door widely for his leader. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you at first. Pardon the mess, sir.”

“No problem,” Joshua says, cordially stepping across the man’s abode. Bonnie followed closely behind. “I was asked to check on you because we have not seen you at Gemini functions for some time now.”

“Yeah well,” Leland says bashfully. “Work has been crazy for a while and ex is always there. Didn’t exactly part on good terms so I’ve been avoiding seeing her. Not that I’ve been avoiding the coven!” He quickly corrects. “My mom keeps me up to date on everything and I practice magic with my nephews every other weekend.”

Joshua nods. “And your ex? What is her name again?”

Leland swallows. “Ruth Grey. Why? Did something happen to her?”

Bonnie circled the man. His fight or flight response was being triggered and Bonnie could practically taste the magic. She licked her lips.

“Nothing happend, we just want to know who has been influencing you to miss coven events. Ms.Grey mentioned the two of you had broken up and we thought that may have been the case.” Joshua tells him, his cool and stoic gaze breaking nothing.

Leland relaxed. “I’ll be sure to go to the next event then.”

“When was the last time you saw Ruth?”

Leland shrugs but Bonnie can see he’s getting nervous. “A while ago maybe?”

Joshua dropped his cool facade. “Leland, we know you have Ruth. Tell us where she is and if she’s alive and your sentence will be lighter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We have proof,” Joshua waves his hand and images of Leland and Ruth appear from Molly Grey’s memory. “As your coven leader, I must ask you to come with me.”

Leland drops his nervous, innocent act. He has chosen to fight. “You and what army?” The man lashes out, arrogantly as if he could beat his coven’s leader. “All you’ve got is yourself and some half-pint cheerleader with no business dealing with adult matters?” Leland angrily says. Bonnie looks down at the jacket she got at cheer regionals. “She gonna pom-pom me to death?”

“Haven’t you heard who I am?” Bonnie asked arrogantly, narrowing her eyes and removing her gloves.

“No, cause I don’t care. Motus.” He fired the spell at Bonnie. It hit her but rather than knock her down like the man expected, Bonnie absorbed the energy thrown at her. Leland had an expression of ‘oh crap.’

Leland began to run away from her and Joshua but not fast enough. Bonnie, feeling nostalgic for her cheerleading days, did two backflips and finished off with a kick to the back of the man’s head. The spell added extra strength to the young witch. The man fell down and Bonnie landed on his back. With her bare hands, she grabbed the man’s chubby face and pulled him upward.

Bonnie focused on his magic. Once she did that, the man tensed up and screamed behind gritted teeth but Bonnie paid no mind. No actually, that’s a lie- she relished in his screams. The lessons of painless siphoning were long forgotten in this moment. Her hands were red and her veins were singing and her lungs were full. Joshua rarely let her use her siphoning so the feeling of magic running through her veins once more was pure bliss. She closes her eyes to further enjoy the euphoria of siphoning as the sight of the greasy man put a damper on the experience. 

But once her eyes were closed she experienced a new kind of sensation- sight. Images flashed before her eyes like she was speed reading an album. Memories. Bonnie saw images of the man’s family, his golden retriever, him practicing magic from his point of view, and meeting with other witches. The Bennetts were gifted with precognition, retrocognition, and clairvoyance. Abby used those abilities to cheat on tests and despite how upset their mom got, Bonnie knew she was proud of Abby’s powers. Was this her own version of those abilities? Bonnie tightened her grip and chased the memories.

The images slowed down so now Bonnie could experience it as the events happened. Leland was indeed guilty of kidnapping Ruth. He had her tied to a chair upstairs with a romantic candle lit dinner set up. Bonnie loosens her grip but keeps siphoning him as more images flashed before her eyes. However, this felt different from memories. She tried to make sense of the images and once she saw her own figure siphoning Leland, she realized she was now seeing his future. He was going to knock her down and make a break for it. As the images flashed further and further into the future, it became too much for Bonnie to bear. The images flashed before her eyes too quickly and too brightly even when she opened her eyes. Bonnie let go of the man’s face. Once she did that, the images stopped. Bonnie fell to the side, trying to catch her breath.

Leland did exactly what she had seen he would do. He had enough energy left in him to knock the teenager off of him and scramble to his feet. He ran to the back door, knocking down his belongings as if it would slow down whoever was chasing him. Once Leland’s hand touched the doorknob however, Joshua twisted his neck around. Leland fell ungracefully onto the floor. The coven leader ignored the now dead body and walked over to Bonnie who was now sitting on the floor.

“You not only had to be an abomination but a disappointing one as well,” Joshua said angrily. “I gave you one job to do and access to magic and you disappointed me.”

She saw him raise his hand and she immediately thought of cheer camp when she was younger. 

Being Joshua Parker’s ward was like being at cheer camp- as long she keeps a smile on her face, everything will be good and her pain will be forgotten.

Bonnie never even felt the slap. Or the other hits that followed.

\---

Kai walks around town looking for Bonnie when he spots multiple lights inside the Mystic Falls High School. He walks into the school easily, thankful he doesn’t have to use his slowly dwindling magic, and follows the sound of music blasting from speakers. Kai ends up in the gym where the disco ball, loud music, and bright colored lights make him flashback to the school’s 70s themed dance. Caroline made him in charge of driving across town to buy decorations. He wonders if she paid him back for that. Bonnie is the only one in the gym but that is not stopping her from having fun. She changed out of her clothes and into a short party dress that caught the light in a flattering way. Bonnie was also dancing with all the skills of a trained dancer, which Kai recalls that she is along with being a former cheerleader. She moves energetically as well as gracefully for hip hop moves that are similar to the robot. Even more impressive however is that Bonnie manages to be laughing despite her assumed loneliness. Kai hates to admit it but seeing her like this is mesmerising. 

“You make me wanna shoop, shoop, shoop ba-doop,” She sang along and spun around to see Kai leaning against the gym door. She brushed her hair out of the way and walked over to him. Mystic Falls gymnasium.

“Are you here to let me free?” Bonnie asked before Kai could say anything first.

“Yes.” He answered with gritted teeth.

Bonnie purses her lips. “You should work on your lies.” She begins to close the door but Kai stops her.

“Listen,” Kai says, exhaling. “I don’t want you to kill my family but I do want to get out of here. Are you seeing my dilemma?”

“I suppose.”

“So convince me. Give me a reason to think you’ve changed.”

“Hasn’t your time here convinced you that this is a place where no witch should be?”

Yes, Kai supposes this place is hell. But he can’t just let her free and while he has already decided her fate outside of the Prison World, he knows she would be suspicious if he agreed straight away.

“You killed your own family. I’m no lawyer but I’m pretty sure that gets people life sentences.”

“Right,” Bonnie remembers, “Kai was not raised with witches.” He had no idea the big differences in morality people and witches had. 

“You want to apply some regular human morality to this situation? Fine. Do you support prisons? Do you support people being locked up for as long as it takes them to repent for their crimes?”

“What? Sure, I guess.” He answered a little confused about where the conversation was going.

“Okay. A prisoner gets a chance to call a lawyer. They get a chance to go to court and plead their case in front of a judge and decide an appropriate amount of time for their crimes.” Bonnie lists. “There are two things that could happen to that person in prison. If the prisoner is well behaved, they can get out early. If a prisoner misbehaves, they are sent to solitary confinement. A prisoner is alone in a cell with a break with no human interaction. Every few hours they can get out of the cell and shower or whatever to prevent them from going insane. This place is solitary confinement and I never even got a trial. You got to have Damon to prevent you from going crazy. I haven’t even seen another human being until you two came along.”

It was time for her to change her tactics, Bonnie decides. She leans against the doorframe, suddenly acting shy. “I was going crazy by myself. Then I found you. And spending all of this time with you… It’s made me realize some things. The violence- it was good for a while. Great even. But then, then it started to scare me. How easy it was. How destructive it was. How easy it was for me to do all that. I never solved any problems with it. It became terrifying and I couldn’t cope. Destroying that house with you was the first time in a long time I felt happy destroying something. But it wasn’t really destroying if we were building a bridge between us, right?”

Kai swallows. He recalls that night. He felt a connection between them before he found that newspaper. Kai has been trying to purge it from his memory but whenever she touched him or even looked at him, that feeling flooded back in. “Why didn’t you say all this earlier?”

“You two were so quick to call me a villain, I got angry and fed into it. I thought, ‘if they want a villain, I’ll give them a villain.’ But after cooling down, I realize my mistake. Like I said, being here all these years did a number on my people skills.” She awkwardly laughs at the last sentence.

“How can we trust you won’t stab us in the back?”

“You can’t. But I’m your only chance of getting out of here. You’re gonna have to put some faith into the fact I want to get out of here even more than you do.” She leans forward. “And I’m going to have to trust you won’t stab me in the back either.”

She placed her hand on his cheek, a gesture so gentle Kai leaned into it. “Please, help me go home.”

Her voice was so sweet he almost believed her. She almost believed herself. 

_ Nice people were so easy to fuck with _ . Bonnie thought to herself.

_ Stick to the plan _ . Kai thought to himself.

“So I am willing to let you go if that means we leave too.  _ But  _ you have to swear you will not kill my family. Everyone else is fair game.” He didn’t bother to remove her hand from his face.

“Last night you were screaming your head off because I killed a couple of nobodies, now you’re giving me a free moral pass?” Bonnie can’t help but remember the quote ‘ _ a million is a statistic… _ ’ She began to siphon a little bit of his magic, pulling as much as she could without letting her hands glow. When she did that, a few of Kai’s memories slowly flashed before her eyes. She recognized almost no one from them except for a boy who looked like Kai- likely the twin Damon was talking about- and Jo, who aged better than Bonnie thought she would. Joshua Parker was nowhere in sight.

“I can only protect so many people, just let those people be my family.” He takes the hand on his cheek off to hold it in front of him. Bonnie was a little surprised he let her touch him. She was sure the news of her being a siphon would have scared him off.

Bonnie nods, not fully believing him but willing to look over that for the sake of getting out. She chooses her next words carefully. “If you let me out I promise not to kill your family.” She swears. 

She holds out her hand. 

Kai accepts her hand.

The deal is made.

Bonnie hates when promises are broken but she has no intention of letting Joshua Parker leave this earth without her having a hand in it. Family is such a flexible word after all… If Jo never told her kids about their Gemini background, especially considering that they are twins, it is highly likely Joshua was never around. Kai probably had a stronger attachment to his father’s side and strangers than to the Parkers. Judging by the visions she saw when she siphoned him, her theory was correct. Still, Bonnie would just have to do a little more digging to confirm it.

\---

“God I wish you could come as my date,” Oscar Oh says, putting on his tuxedo jacket. Oscar is a siphon, just like Bonnie and part of the Gemini Coven. As the only other siphon Bonnie knew as well as one of the few non-white member of the Gemini Coven, they naturally gravitated to each other. Bonnie was pretty sure she considered him her best friend. 

“Oscar,” Bonnie says with a dramatic gasp. “Is this your way of confessing your undying love for me?”

“Bonnie, I’m sorry but you know I’m saving myself for Lisa Turtle.” The Korean-American says in an equally dramatic voice. He places a finger over her mouth to silence her. “Please, don’t waste your tears on me.”

Bonnie playfully tries to bite his finger with a playful smile.

Oscar yanks his finger away with an equally silly smile. “But seriously, the gala would be so much better if you were there.”

“I know,” Bonnie says. “You only tell me like a hundred times a day.”

“Because it’s true!” Oscar groans. “I know you wanna get dressed up and party with the coven but it’s so  _ boring _ beyond that. I sit with my family and get ignored by every girl there. With you there, at least I’d have a dance partner.”

“And some trouble would happen and we’d get blamed.” Bonnie says, listing a con of going to the gala. Everytime the Gemini Coven hosts a party in which Bonnie gets excluded because she’s not part of the coven, she would make a list of reasons why it’s best she  _ wasn’t _ invited.

“Are you sure you wanna go with a bow tie?” Bonnie asks as she adjusts said bow tie around Oscar’s neck.

“No but it’s what the rest of the coven boys are wearing,” Oscar says. 

“Coven comes before family.” They say in unison, mocking Joshua Parker’s words.

“Hand me that watch.” Oscar says, adjusting his cufflinks. Bonnie hands it to him, feeling the magic on the hard metal. She siphons a little bit off the top but tries not to be obvious about it. She places the watch in his hand.

Oscar lifts the watch as if testing its weight. “Did you siphon this?”

“A little bit,” Bonnie says with a teasing smile.

“I better be able to spell some alcohol into the punch.” Oscar rolls his eyes and puts the watch on. Then, he grabs a knife off his dresser and throws it at Bonnie’s face.

Bonnie instinctively puts her hands up, telekinetically stopping the knife in the air. The blade was a centimeter away from her hand. She rolls her eyes at Oscar. Bonnie flips the knife in the air and grabs its handle. “Where do you keep getting these magical objects anyway?” She playfully tosses the knife in the air.

“I’ve been spending some extra time studying,” He says proudly. “Made it myself.”

“Can you make me a necklace?” She throws the knife back at him. Oscar has a second to spot it in the mirror before he spins to stop it telekinetically. “Tsk, you’re getting slow.”

“Stop making me drain my watch,” Oscar says, letting the knife drop to the floor so he can straighten his shirt in the mirror. “I can’t make it through the ball without alcohol.”

“You started it.” Bonnie says sticking her tongue out. “But the necklace?”

“Yeah, probably. Actually,” He spins to face her again. “I’ll do you one better, I’ll teach you. It’s just transferring magic into objects. You can siphon something and put it into an object.”

“That would be awesome!” Bonnie says with a genuine smile. “I’ve forgiven you for not letting me be your date to the gala.”

“I knew you were in love with me!” Oscar says with a teasing grin.

“Sorry to break your heart but I don’t think I could love a man who wears a blue blazer to a gala.”

“What, you don’t find this sexy?” Oscar strikes a pose.

Bonnie laughs and levitates the knife to throw it at him again. Oscar laughs when it grazes his ear. A drop of blood falls onto the collar of his blazer.

\---

“Good, you’re back,” Damon says when he sees Bonnie enter his home.

“I’m sorry I took the power out of your daylight ring,” Bonnie apologizes, not entirely meaning it. She would definitely be taking the power back at the next available chance. “I can transfer it back if you want.”

Damon eyes her suspiciously. “How am I so sure you won’t just drain it again?”

“Because I need to get back to the real world and since Kai is my ticket out of here, I think it’s best I don’t piss him off by killing his friend.”

Kai wanted to say they weren’t really friends but held his tongue.

“And if you’re worried about me siphoning you, just leave the ring right here while I transfer the magic back.”

“You could take magic from a vampire?” Damon quirks a brow.

“I don’t know,” Bonnie admits. “But you’re made from magic so there’s a chance I could. Though, you are your own species so maybe not.”

“So we’re all cool now?” Damon asks, looking at Kai. The witch gives a short nod. Their plan is in motion.

“Yep,” Bonnie says, not noticing the two plotting against her. “As a gesture of good will, let me give back your ring’s power.”

Damon takes off his ring and places it on the table. Bonnie takes it in her hands and concentrates on the magic she has inside of her. It transfers to the ring and leaves her feeling cold and heavy. Bonnie had no idea how heavy the human body could be without light. But she shakes off the feeling because she’s Bonnie Bennett and she’s made of tougher stuff. 

Sometime while Bonnie was transferring the magic back into Damon’s ring, Kai had left the room. Bonnie didn’t know where he went but she trusted the Parker boy wouldn’t be dumb enough to kill his only ticket out of the Prison World. Bonnie places the ring back in Damon’s hand and when she touches his palm she has another idea.

“Say, what have you been surviving on all this time?” She asks, playing with her necklace. The Bennett family grimoire has a section on vampire blood and its many properties. If she could get that into her system, there could be a chance she could use it for magic. She could worry about the possibility of dying and coming back as a vampire but that would mean she would have to actually die and Bonnie was not concerned with that part.

“What do you mean?” He asks, the familiar weight of his daylight ring on his finger.

“I’ve never met a vampire before,” Bonnie lied and took off her necklace. “But it’s common knowledge you survive on blood, yes?”

“Generally, yeah.” Damon says dryly.

“So what have you been drinking? Blood bags?  _ Kai _ ?” She says his name like a joke. The pair hardly seem to get along which baffles Bonnie. She watched them for months without them knowing about her and the two went at each other’s throats day in and day out. Why they stayed together for so long, Bonnie had no idea. But she never claimed to understand boys. Girls were easier, hiding their teeth claws with smiles and manicures because anything was better than being alone.

“There’s some blood bags in the fridge.” He says it plainly but Bonnie can see the disgust in his eyes about having to do it.

“How would you like to try some fresh blood?” She tilts her head to the side and brushes her hair out of the way. “To show solidify how much trust I’m putting into you two.”

Damon stares at the girl for a long time, trying to figure out her game plan. He knows nothing about siphoners and the lack of information makes him wary. Still, the offer of fresh blood after months of stale, preserved blood bags is alluring. The way her vein throbs deliciously in her neck, her skin so smooth it was begging to be marked with his fangs. Her party girl attire makes him recall his victims of choice he used to drain before coming back to Mystic Falls. Damon can feel his breath getting heavier just thinking about drinking her.

“C’mon, Damon, it’s just a taste.” Bonnie tells him her hand leaving her neck to trace down the front of her body. After months of being with only Kai and blood bags, it becomes too much for Damon. His fangs and veins pop out and he buries his teeth into Bonnie’s neck. The witch lets out a cry of surprise but Damon pays no mind. Her blood is warm and sweet and alive and…

Bonnie buries her fingers into the vampire’s hair and gently pushes him backwards until he hits his bed. Damon never leaves her neck this entire time so Bonnie is forced to straddle his leg in order to make herself comfortable. Her skirt rides up as well. Not that Bonnie minds, in fact she is sure of the kind of picture she is painting right now. It’s the kind of picture that would drive Kai insane. With that in mind, Bonnie lets out another cry.

Kai runs into the room and Bonnie pretends not to notice. She squirms a bit, practically gyrating on Damon’s lap, and puts her hands on the vampire’s back pulling him closer. Damon runs his hands over Bonnie’s body so he can hold her in place. His hands attach to her waist, then trace her body. His hands manage to pull her dress up, bunching around her waist to reveal a bit more skin. Damon grasps her neck to hold her closer, sinking his teeth in deeper to draw out more blood. Bonnie lets out a gasp, more out of surprise than of pain. She was beginning to feel light headed and her eyes began to flutter but Bonnie can practically feel the jealousy coming from Kai as she lets Damon’s hands run all over her. Letting the vampire take her before Kai could. Letting the vampire claim another girl before the witch could. 

Bonnie had never felt desired before now. Before, boys treated her like she was second best or avoided her altogether. The ones who did show interest made it clear she was a friend or that they were more interested in her abilities. But with Kai’s jealousy, she finally knows what it’s like to feel like an actual woman. To be desired for her and not her abilities. Bonnie was glad for Kai’s lack of control over the mask he wore. It made it easy to see how much he wanted her and her alone. The siphon could practically taste his anger and jealousy. It felt so good. She wanted to push him further. The room was filled with tension- sexual, anger, and hunger. Which one belongs to which person in the room, Bonnie is unsure. She lets out a long, loud moan for good measure though.

“Okay, okay,” Kai cuts in. “I think that’s enough, Damon let the girl go before you kill her.”

Bonnie feels the fangs leave her veins and lets out a whimper, just to mess with Kai even further. Damon bites into his wrist and offers it to Bonnie. She accepts, drinking him like he drank her. The wounds on her neck disappear leaving behind a messy blood stain. She gets off his lap and straightens her dress and, while facing Kai, licks her lips and wipes away any remaining droplets with her thumb suggestively.

“He wasn’t doing anything I wasn’t uncomfortable with.” She tells him and walks out of the room. She can feel the vampire’s blood moving inside of her and Kai’s heated gaze on her. She has never felt so powerful without any magic before.

Damon looks at Kai with a bloody smile and points in the direction Bonnie left in. “That girl is delicious.”

“You’re just hungry.” Kai brushes it off, trying to mask anger. 

\---

They find Bonnie in the kitchen drinking a bottle of Gatorade and poking through the fridge. Despite what happened five minutes ago, the boys have agreed not to lose control around Bonnie again. She is the enemy and their ticket out. They cannot afford to see her as anything else. An enemy and a ticket, nothing more, nothing less.

“Did you say you were a Bennett?” Kai asks, wondering if they had a weakness.

Bonnie nods with a mouthful of Gatorade in her mouth.

“I knew a Bennett,” Damon tells her. “Her name was Emily, she worked for an old flame of mine way back when.”

“Oh? That was like, a hundred years ago.” Bonnie says, surprised. She was well-versed in her family history and spent many weekends reading over the family tree and grimoires. Emily Bennett was the second witch in history to create daylight rings just through deciphering the spell that the secretive Ester Mikealson hadn’t dared to share with anyone else. Sometimes Bonnie wondered if Emily was actually the third witch in history to create daylight rings because it was a Bennett witch, Ayanna, who taught Ester how to create vampires. A mystery, Bonnie thinks, that will never be solved because it is Ester’s written spells that live on and not her Ayanna’s words.

“Well the whole immortality thing keeps me pretty young so...” Damon teases.

“No, no,” Bonnie laughs at his poor joke. In the corner of her eye she can see Kai getting irritated. “I’m just trying to understand why someone would come back to Mystic Falls, especially during the middle of the Civil War.”

“That’s when I was turned. Left the war to come back home and since becoming a vampire, I come back every so often when I feel nostalgic.”

Bonnie halted her movements- a white man, living in the south during the Civil War, who also fought in said war. He doesn’t say which side he fought for but Bonnie knows. She holds back a groan at her bad luck. His disgusting blood was running through her body. 

Bonnie swallows her disgust, as she often did when she lived with the Parkers, and asks, “What was she like?” She fists her necklace.

“Very kind,” Damon says, thinking hard about the woman he met briefly all those years ago. He could really only remember her death and how well she served Katherine. “Very loyal and strong. Always standing up for her friends and putting others before herself. I haven’t met many people like her in some time.”

Bonnie can read between the lines.  _ Emily Bennett was a very good slave who helped her white masters do whatever they needed- including tip the scales of the natural world and sacrifice her own life- because she was a strong woman. A real credit to her people. _

“She sounded wonderful.” Bonnie wants to send the vampire flying across the room and impale him against the wall. She wants to watch him dessicate before her eyes. She wants to send him an aneurysm. She wants to make him suffer in the sun without his ring. Instead Bonnie smiles a smile she often wore when she lived with the Parkers.

\---

Bonnie was seventeen when she learned that while witches hate vampires- creatures that were bigger abominations than herself- they are more than happy to work with them if they get something out of it.

“Excuse me,” A voice called out. Bonnie looked up from her book to see, brown haired woman looking down at her and a pair of girls behind her. “Servant girl, can you tell us where we can find your coven leader?”

Bonnie looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a checkerboard overall dress and Jo’s old pink turtleneck. It may be a bit dated but Bonnie thought she looked nice. Nice enough not to be mistaken for the help anyway. Why would-  _ oh _ . Bonnie looked at the woman more closely- pale skin and a thin layer of disgust over her otherwise attractive features. Bonnie’s slight psychic abilities and quick look at the woman told her she was meeting her very first vampire. Bonnie was disappointed. Anne Rice novels told her they would at least be a little polite before tearing her throat out.

These were the vampires that sought an audience with the Gemini Coven leader and the reason Bonnie was at the Gemini compound so late at night. 

Joshua and the rest of the Gemini have adopted the motto of  _ Coven Before Family _ . The Gemini Coven was large but still very secretive, so much so that even after living with the Parkers for a year, Bonnie was still ignorant on certain coven matters. The Bennett witch was neither coven member nor family to the Gemini. What Bonnie did know was that members believed “the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few.” The Gemini Coven’s secrecy aside, it was still surprising the vampires were allowed to walk in Gemini territory considering the relationship between witches and vampires. 

Witches and vampires have had a rocky relationship with each other in the past. Sometimes witches would hate vampires for being abominations of nature. Bonnie could sympathize with vampires as she too is considered an abomination against nature. However she, like many other witches, found it very difficult to befriend them other times when vampires made witches became their servants. Bonnie remembers her own mother had worked with a few vampires who sought out her services. They gave her special ingredients and rare herbs in exchange. The last time Sheila worked with a vampire it had not ended well. She was in the kitchen when the vampire became too friendly with her mother and too comfortable using her services. Sheila got fed up with said vampire and ended up twisting his neck in response. Bonnie had made her mom a card that day, though Sheila had to sit her daughter down and explain why violence wasn’t something to be praised (a lesson Bonnie still had yet to comprehend). 

California made up most of Gemini territory, a.k.a the west coast, so few vampires were often found in Gemini territory. The rest who weren’t daunted by the idea of living in sunny California or were attracted to the Northwestern states, were disgusted by the idea of allowing themselves to be ruled over by witches. It was also fairly difficult for vampires to move in because witches were not particularly fond of having vampires in their area. The new vampires were not daunted by either of these proclamations as they were attracted to the mountain ranges and lush green grass as well as the weather offering some protection from the sun. However, Portland is still witch territory so they would have to be accepted by the coven leader in order to move in. In addition, the vampires still needed daylight rings and the Gemini had a monopoly on daylight rings in the area. Smaller covens in the area could create daylight rings themselves, but since the Gemini made up the majority of witches on the west coast it was easier to find a Gemini.

“Hello, are you deaf?” The woman snapped her fingers in front of the teen before sighing. 

That took Bonnie out of her daze. She hadn’t heard talk like that since moving out of Virginia. The Geminis, as awful as they are, at least knew the Bennett name and respected her because of it. It was the only kindness the Gemini Coven as a whole offered.

“My name is not servant girl. It’s Bonnie. And whatever business you have with the Gemini can wait until you’ve fixed your attitude.” The witch answers coldly.

“How dare you. My family fought for your people’s freedom and you dare treat me like this?”

Bonnie raises her brow and stands up to look the vampire in the eye. Another reason witches tended not to get along with vampires was because they held onto their  _ slightly  _ dated views of when they were human. 

“I will treat you however I damn well please, this isn’t the eighteen-hundreds anymore. You have done nothing to show I owe you any sort of respect.”

The vampire let out an offended scoff. “How dare you, you insolent, entitled little girl!” She screams. 

It is then Bonnie is struck with an aneurysm and falls to the ground in pain. “Ah!”

“Charlotte,” A calm voice says from behind the vampire and witch, shutting both of them up. Bonnie’s aneurysm stops and both women turn to see Joshua Parker walking to them with a polite smile on his face. “I see you found our compound safely.”

“Apologizes for her behavior,” Joshua tells the vampire politely and looks at Bonnie who is still on her knees. “She is an outsider to Gemini affairs and does not represent our coven. We have much to discuss so allow me to escort you to our meeting room. Bonnie,” He faced his ward. “We will discuss your punishment later.”

Charlotte looks pleased at the mention of Bonnie’s punishment and walks arm in arm with the coven leader.

Bonnie wonders if Joshua allowing the vampires to stay in Portland was part of her punishment.

\---

Eventually it was just Bonnie and Kai downstairs. Damon left to go sleep upstairs, though Kai knew that was just code for ‘drink alone.’

Kai slides next to Bonnie. “What’s your game plan?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Bonnie says. He doesn’t buy her innocence for a second.

“With Damon. You’re letting him drink your blood, flirting with him-”

“I’m  _ not _ flirting with him.” Bonnie corrected.

“Doesn’t seem like that from where I’m standing.”

“Oh I see,” Bonnie pretends to come to a realization. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not.”

“You totally are.” She puts down her drink to look him in the eye. “You’re upset I stopped paying attention to you, giving you lessons, and all that.”

“No,” Kai denies. “You showed nothing but disgust for him earlier and now you’re all over him?”

“I was  _ annoyed _ by him at best and honestly I still am. But you’re the one who told me I needed to earn your guys’ trust so I thought being nice would do it.” 

“Why are you so desperate to get out? The world has moved on since you left it you know. There’s nothing for you out there. People don’t care about you anymore, you’re completely forgotten out there.” The way he says this, so desperately and so earnestly makes Bonnie think Kai isn’t just trying to dissuade her. She thinks it’s more like he’s projecting whatever anxiety he has onto her. As much as she can sympathize with it, she will not stand for it.

“We already had this conversation.I already convinced you to let me out. You said you weren’t getting in the way of my revenge.” Bonnie reminds him, her voice betraying her anger. “I told you I won’t harm your family, just everyone else who hurt me. You told me, as long as we all get out of here you won’t stand in my way.”

“But after you get your revenge- then what?” Kai pushes.

“I will start living again. I want time to go on. There are still people out that I love and want to see again. I want to form connections and fall in love. I want a future- a real future.”

“Love?” Kai asks. “What do you know about love? You can’t love. You don’t understand it. It’s not your fault, Bonster.” He says mockingly softly. “You can mimic it, and I guess you can recognize it in other people- but you will never be able to understand love.”

Bonnie swallows her anger and thoughts of siphoning him so she can use him as a human pin cushion. “Do you want to get out of here or not, Kai?”

Kai takes a deep sigh. “I-I just want to understand. Why try to get out to go to a place where everyone has moved on without you?”

He does, he really does. When he died, he saw everyone’s life go on without him. Kai held back his anger when he came back to life but that anger soon turned to sadness. Wasn’t he their friend? Hadn’t he died for them? Yes, Kai will admit that he wasn’t always kind to them, especially when they got his brother into trouble, but he was their  _ friend _ . Kai had inside jokes with each of them. He grew up with Elena and Jeremy and went to their house almost everyday after school. Him and Tyler and Matt would gang up on Jake together and go out to the Mystic Grill for lunch. He went on a chocolate and tampon run for Caroline after she broke up with her boyfriend. Him and the Salvatores had planned the attack on the Mikaelsons together. Not to mention every single supernatural occurrence that they all had to play hero for.

Kai loved them and they loved him back but not enough to mourn him properly.

“A terrible person you may be, but even you don’t deserve that kind of heartbreak.” Kai tells her honestly.

Bonnie’s breath hitched in her throat as his words processed in her mind. To her shame, Bonnie throws herself around Kai and hugs him. “I want closure.” She says into his shirt as the asshole is unreasonably tall. “But thank you.”

Were his words a fucked up way of showing he cared about her? No- that can’t be right. He just accused her of being loveless and alone. And she siphoned a little bit off him to peek into his memories. However due to her lack of practice, she didn’t have time to comprehend his memories. Her psychic senses were triggered and she sensed trouble was coming her way.

But Kai just told her she didn’t deserve heartbreak. Maybe he was drawing on his own experiences. If his friends are anything like Damon, Bonnie understands. Maybe he was playing the same game as her. Manipulating her with false concerns like she does to him. One thing for sure- Kai hates her and cares for her. Bonnie has experienced hate in many forms throughout her life, it’s something she understands. She can live with it. But care? Someone caring for her makes her feel something. Bonnie doesn’t know what it is but she feels alive because of it. Like she’s a human being.

She can hate and like him at the same time too. It isn’t hard.

\---

Jo sat at the edge of her bed, flipping through the pages of her magazine when twenty-year old Bonnie knocked on her door.

“Hey Bon,” Jo greeted. “What’s up?”

“I’m nervous,” She awkwardly smiled. “My mom is coming to see me. My sister too. I can’t believe it’s been two years since I last saw them.” And four years since she became Joshua’s ward.

“I can’t wait to meet them. I’m sure they miss you too.”

“What if they don’t?”

“What do you mean?” Jo asked bewildered.

“What if they don’t like what I’ve become. I know I’m not a Gemini but I’ve been with you for five years. Plus, I was dead for a while. I don’t know if that really makes me a Bennett. Me not feeling like a Bennett witch is one thing but what if they agree with me? What if they reject me and I never get to go home?”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Jo tells her. “From what you’ve told me, they wouldn’t dare turn their backs on you.”

“I don’t know how much of my heart is left, you know?” Bonnie said to the older girl. “When I died… When I died I-I... I still don’t know how to process it. There’s a hollowness in me. It makes me feel like a ghost again. But sometimes… sometimes it fills up with self hate and misery. If my mom doesn’t love me anymore, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Bonnie…” Jo flipped her magazine close and pulled her into a hug. “I don’t know anyone who has fought longer or harder or better than you. You are supposed to stay strong for the rest of us.”

Bonnie pulls back. “But-”

“The coven let you die because you were expendable but you said fuck that and brought yourself to life anyway. I have never seen someone ever show that kind of strength in my life. I don’t even know if I’ve read of someone doing what you did. If you give up, that means there’s no hope for the rest of us. I won’t have anything left to hold onto.” Jo smiles and places her hand on Bonnie’s shoulder. Bonnie looks down at the hand.

But I don’t want to keep fighting, Bonnie wants to scream. 

Why should I have to be strong for you? For this coven? Bonnie wants to shout. 

I am all on my own until you decide you need something. You will go back to ignoring me once I’m done doing whatever you need me to do. Bonnie wants to scream this at Jo, make her cower down at the truth.

You want me to be strong for you? What do I get in return? I want love, I want to belong, and I know damn well you are not going to give it to me! Bonnie wants to sob.

Bonnie wants to scream all this and more at Jo. But she bites her tongue instead.

\---

Bonnie sleeps in her room that night, cuddling with Miss Cuddles. 

“I know I said I was going to be evil, Miss Cuddles but I saw that was going nowhere. I hope you’re not disappointed I sort of lied to you.” She hugged the teddy bear tighter as she spoke into the bear’s fur. “I do have a sneaking suspicion that they could betray me. Kai was trying so hard to convince me to stay here. I think he has a soft spot for me.”

Bonnie pulls back with a gasp. “Don’t say that! I do not have a crush! He called me loveless, I don’t think I can forgive him for that. But I did hug him and god, it felt so good to hug him. Hugging you is great but hugging someone taller than me with body heat? I’ve missed it. Miss Cuddles, don’t say that! What I’m saying is I can use that soft spot against him.”

“Miss Cuddles!” Bonnie says aghast in a low voice. “Such a dirty mouth. You know I’m saving myself for when we get out of here.” She boops the bear’s nose. “But back to them betraying me. If my psychic senses are activated and I’m right, I’ll let you have the front row seat to the hell I will unleash onto them.” She presses a kiss on top of the bear’s head and lets her mind rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry Bonnie is a bit ‘lighter’ than previous chapters. She’s happy right now and when she’s happy she’s just destructive. When she’s mad, she unleashes hell. Then we’ll see Bonnie is her dark and evil and murderous glory.   
> Please let me know if you need Bonnie and witches’ powers explained further. It feels like a lot of exposition so I’m not sure if everything was covered.
> 
> It’s only referenced here but I wonder how being propped up as the strong, responsible black woman who helps all her white friends with their issues and being treated like a personal weapon while continuingly ignoring her own mental issues because she has to remain strong for them is going to work out for Bonnie. Not well I imagine. I’ll explore a little bit more in future chapters but I think the flashbacks with the Parkers demonstrate a good idea of it so far.   
> Here’s a question: did Bonnie get this way because of how people have treated her or because she always had evil in her and everyone was making it worse? I watched the Take’s ‘Strong Black Woman’ video and read a bunch of meta so I am sort of using those as guidelines on how to write Bonnie. She will not be strong and smart one hundred percent of the time, I have actually scheduled a breakdown for her in a few chapters because adjusting to the real world is going to take a toll on her mental health, and have a purpose outside of helping Kai. I’m honestly getting a little tired of her playing teacher/manic pixie dream girl to Kai. 
> 
> It’s time for her to be evil now. But like, in two chapters. I promise. I wrote her torturing people and everything.


	4. They Smilin' in Your Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 21 pages. You are warned. 
> 
> Also, it is important to remember that they are still in the ‘enemies’ stage of their ‘enemies to friends to lovers to whatever’ relationship. They are experiencing some romantic tension but that is not stopping them from achieving their goals. They are after all, enemies right now.
> 
> TW: murder, violence, mentions of child abuse

The thing about dreams is that they could mean nothing or they could mean everything. When you’re a witch, the stakes are higher. Which dreams have meaning and which dreams don’t? Choose wisely because that dream you brushed aside could come true and everyone you’ve ever loved dies. Or that dream you thought would happen turns out to be false and you’ve driven everyone you’ve ever loved away and they end up dead. It’s fun being a witch.

Every other week, Kai dreams of digging a hole in the ground. He doesn’t know why he’s digging, he just does it. He digs and digs and digs until there is a sharp pain in his arm. He drops the shovel. It’s a hot kind of pain, one that opens his veins and pulls him apart, piece by piece. Kai can feel himself growing weaker until he is forced to his knees. When the pain stops, the hole begins to fill with a green plant, one with big leaves and long stems. Kai doesn’t know what plant it is but it doesn’t stop growing. In a panic, he grabs his shovel and starts cutting it down, destroying the plant with every swing of his hand. But his efforts are futile and the plant keeps regrowing, filling the hole. When Kai reaches out to touch the plant, he is surprised to find the leaves are soft and cool. It’s incredibly calming and Kai’s favorite part of the dream. The plants wrap around him like a blanket, pushing him upward as the plant grows. When he and the plant reach the top, the plant places him on the ground. Kai sits back as he watches the plant continue to grow taller and taller until its leaves touch the stars in the sky.

Kai cannot for the life of him, think of what the dream is telling him. 

However, Kai does not have time to interpret his dreams. Bonnie keeps him more than occupied with magic lessons. It had also been a month since they started his magical training, his abilities a lot more basic than either of them had anticipated, so Bonnie’s patience as well as everyone else’s abilities were wearing thin. Damon making his dissatisfaction known to both witches hasn’t helped improve anyone’s mood either. The lessons go like this:

Bonnie puts her hands on Kai, adjusting his hands or his body’s position. Kai tries not to look at her while she does this. 

Damon may come out and demand, “What is taking so long?”

“The spell we need to get out of here requires a lot of power,” Bonnie tells Damon when he asks. “If we did the spell right away, he would end up dead and us trapped in here. And I refuse to let myself get stuck with  _ you _ .”

In which the vampire will turn to Kai and say, “Hurry up and get better at magic!”

“I’m trying!” Kai defends and Damon storms into the house to drink some more. Bonnie and Kai would glare at the impatient vampire then get back to the lesson.

Neither of them talked about the night they hugged, the night he felt himself relaxing into her touch. The night Bonnie looked up at him with soft eyes, leaving Kai had to wonder when the last time she was touched. The night he pulled himself out of her grip and awkwardly walked away without looking back. Kai never even thought about that night. It was a rare moment of softness and kindness he had never seen from her and will never think of again. If, however, he did think of it, Kai would remind himself of Bonnie’s desires. Namely, that she wanted to kill his family. What he was going to do about her was still up in the air (should he kill her or stop her some other way?) but he always had to remind himself to stay focused on the fact that Bonnie was the enemy and his teacher. 

In this particular lesson, they’ve been trying to get sparks to come out of Kai’s hands for almost an hour. He needed to find a balance in his mind, pull a peaceful thought to the forefront of his mind. How was he supposed to be at peace while thinking of rage?

“I don’t need you to try, I need you to do it.” Bonnie tells him while slurping a slushie. Kai had told Bonnie the sound of her sucking the nearly empty slushies was incredibly distracting. Which prompted her to drink the drink more noisily. It was easier to think of her as the enemy when she was annoying like this.

Irritated, Kai tells her, “You’re a real bitch you know that?”

“At least this bitch can do the spell when she has magic.” She fires back and sucks the slushie even louder.

“I told you, I’m trying!” He screams and bright sparks fly from his hand.

“And now you just did it,” Bonnie says smugly, putting her slushie down. Kai looks at her and the flares go out of his hands. “Do it again.”

Kai thinks back to the feeling when he yelled at Bonnie and said the spell again. More sparks come out of his hands, albeit not as brightly as the first time. “Did you know that was going to happen? When you were bitching at me?”

“No,” She admits and there is something in her gaze that makes Kai nervous. “But I’m glad I did.”

Bonnie goes on to explain how the sparkling hands spell, as Kai had dubbed it, was used for entertaining and for short range defense and all the other applications the spell could be used for. But Kai wasn’t paying attention to her words, even though he really should. He was instead watching how animatedly she was talking about magic. He would have thought that someone with abilities dependent on others, it would have made her bitter and angry. Don’t get him wrong, she had expressed her bitterness and anger towards magic many times, especially when he messed up. But, Bonnie still managed to be very excited about the applications of each spell she taught him and was very hands on with correcting his movements. Kai sometimes found that he very much liked Bonnie’s hands on him. Not that he would ever admit it to himself.

Bonnie’s expectant look takes him out of his thoughts. “Kai?”

“Sorry, what were you saying?” He says feeling his cheek warm.

“I know I’m pretty but you really need to pay attention to what I’m telling you,” Bonnie teases and smiles. 

Once again, as with every practice, looking at Bonnie will send butterflies screaming in his stomach. Or she’ll put her tiny hands on him and Kai will struggle not to pass out from the sensation. Sometimes Bonnie will bring a snack out, like a banana or yogurt and Kai will find himself distracted by the way she eats. His instincts are telling him to run away from her but he cannot help but stay put. Bonnie is like a venus flytrap, luring unsuspecting bugs with her colorful exterior before eating them alive. Kai knows this and still cannot help but be hypnotized by her. It’s confusing and frustrating and Kai can’t stand her because of it.

Which is where Damon comes in. As the unlucky soul that ended up in the Prison World with Kai, the vampire has to listen to Kai rant on about the little witch while he paces around the room. Kai would feel bad about subjecting Damon to his complaints but then he remembers that he had to suffer through the Damon-Elena-Stefan love triangle so he stops feeling bad.

Sometimes the rants will be regular rants wherein Kai needs to get something off his chest. These are the kinds of rants Damon welcomes because it’s easy to echo the words back to Kai. 

“I don’t understand what the fuck she is trying to teach me. Like how is this useful at all for using the Ascendant?” Kai asks, frustrated.

“Yeah, how is it useful?” Damon will respond while selecting a blood bag since Bonnie won’t let him drink from her anymore. She even made a point to demonstrate that she had poisoned her own blood by cutting herself open and pouring her blood into a cup. She laughed when he spat out the blood, even though the blood got on her.

Kai will pace around the room. “Bonnie should just teach me the spell already, she’s always complaining how she wants to leave.”

Damon throws a paper airplane across the room. “She should teach you the spell.”

Most of the time though, Damon has to listen to Kai fixate on every little thing Bonnie has ever done. If indifference is the opposite of love, Kai’s obsession with Bonnie must mean he really loves the witch. Damon stopped laughing at the irony weeks ago and now just wanted to dream of being anywhere else. Or better yet, actually go somewhere where Kai isn’t talking about Bonnie.

“She keeps bringing out different grimoires and I’m like, ‘good for you translating all these spells, you’re  _ sooo _ smart congratulations.’ I’m  _ sooo _ glad you have both beauty and brains.” Kai sarcastically claps.

Before Damon can get a word in, Kai will keep talking about her. “You should see the way she looks at me. The wheels in her pretty little head are always turning. Stay alert, Damon, I don’t know what she’s planning.”

“Today all she did was yell at me,” Kai tells Damon, who is screaming into a pillow. “Like, fuck her-”

“Please!” Damon cuts off, tired of listening to Kai. “Please just fuck her already.”

“Dude, what the fuck?” Kai asks, a little disgusted by the thought.

“You come into my room almost everyday to complain about her after every lesson.” Damon says, lifting his head off the bed. “And everyday I roll my eyes and let you vent because I’m nice like that. But right now? I’m sick of your whining because you think she’s hot.”

“Damon, she wants to kill my family. I hate her.”

“Yeah okay,” Damon scoffs. “Have you told yourself that? Cause while your brain’s been telling you to hate her, your eyes have been screaming ‘fuck me’.”

“Screw you man,” Kai says, walking out the door. It was the last time Kai went to Damon to complain and he would occasionally catch the vampire smirking knowing he won the argument.

Since Damon accused him of catching feelings, Kai has made an effort not to show any attraction to Bonnie. He put his mask back on his face and listed everything wrong with Bonnie. It was all part of that game they were playing when they met.

  1. Bonnie is a picky eater.
  2. Bonnie killed her family, his grandmother, and some lady.
  3. Bonnie still wants to kill his grandfather. This should probably be at number one actually.
  4. Bonnie thinks she can bat her eyes and smile and that will get him to do whatever she wants.
  5. Bonnie is a psychopath so anything she says cannot be trusted.



Focusing on those five things made it easier for Kai to focus on his lessons and look past all Bonnie’s tricks. This helped him in the long run because soon Kai was climbing through the ranks of magic and become stronger than ever. Bonnie looks impressed when she pulls out a leatherback grimoire with the Gemini crest written in silver and flips the worn out pages.

“This spell should show how strong your magic is,” Bonnie says when she reaches her destination. Kai looks at the page across from her, reading the title upside down.

“A weather spell?” Kai raises a brow. While not easy, it’s not exactly something Kai would qualify in the realm of extremely difficult. Kai never received more than a minor nosebleed from doing weather spells.

Bonnie flips the book over so he can read it properly. “Don’t get too cocky. The tricky part is doing it in  _ here _ . Here the weather does not change, so you’re not only summoning the power to make a storm but also to defy the laws of this place.”

“Do you think it’s gonna work?”

“I combined the storm spell with a little reality manipulation.” Bonnie says proudly. “You’re a Gemini so that sort of thing should come natural to you.”

Kai isn’t as easily convinced. “I don’t think I have enough power to do that.”

“I wouldn’t show you this spell if I didn’t know you could do it.”

The statement sends warmth across Kai’s heart but he brushes the feeling off. Bonnie doesn’t miss the second of softness in his eyes and stores it away in her mind. “I’ve never heard of someone combining spells before.”

“What can I say? Even without magic I’m one hell of a witch,” She winks. Again, butterflies fill Kai’s stomach. “But if you’re really unsure, we can try a similar spell before you try mine.”

She flips to a different page of reality manipulation and places a pencil on the table. 

“Ever watch like, Looney Toons or watch cartoons?” Bonnie questions, unsure of what television is like in the present day.

Kai glanes at the page title then takes the pencil to examine it. “You’re gonna make me Bugs Bunny? Draw random shit into reality?”

“Exactly.” Bonnie smiles, glad he’s on the same wavelength as her. 

She pushes the grimoire towards him. Kai studied the spell, asking Bonnie for help with the pronunciation every few words, which she corrected. He repeated the spell, flawlessly this time, and the pencil glowed blue. Bonnie picked it up and drew a daisy on the table. The flower grew in its place. Bonnie plucked it and handed it to Kai, along with the pencil.

“Now it’s your turn.” She tells him. “Make a little storm cloud.”

“Should I do it on the table or in the sky or on my hand?” Kai rambled.

“Go with your gut.” Bonnie tells him, slurping her slushie and batting her eyes as she does so. 

It stirs something inside Kai. It’s something mean and childish. He was never one to pull his crushes’ pigtails or push them off the jungle gym but then again he was never attracted to a girl like Bonnie before. Kai draws a cartoonish rain cloud above her head, a few raindrops already falling. When he pulls his hand away Bonnie is drenched with water.

“You’re a bastard, you know that?” She says holding her wet slushie cup. Kai laughs at her misfortune before she throws her drink in his face. It wipes his smirk off his face and gives her time to snatch the magic pencil. Bonnie erases the storm cloud and draws some snow balls and twists the pencil into her hair to form a small bun. 

Noticing she is now armed, Kai holds his hands up in surrender. “Woah, woah, woah, I was just playing around. I didn’t mean any harm.”

Bonnie smiles. “I do.” 

She chases after the boy pelting him with a seemingly endless supply of snowballs. Bonnie laughs each time he gets hit, which prompts Kai to laugh as well. There is something incredibly childish about the whole thing. As she runs after him however, the pencil falls out of her hair which has become loose around her face. The snowballs soon run out and the two witches search for the magic pencil. The pair spot it at the same time and dive for it. Kai is able to grab it first and draw another storm cloud but Bonnie crawls on top of him to snatch it out of his hand. The storm cloud rises above the two, growing in size and raining on the pair. Not that either of them notice right away. Kai instinctively pushes Bonnie off of him so he can get over her small frame. He has no time to look at her face as she waves the pencil above her head while he tries to grab it like a cat catching a fish. He is eventually successful, his hand trapping hers. Bonnie’s fist is still tight around the pencil, showing no sign of letting go. Kai looks down at Bonnie to see a teasing look on her face. She isn’t letting go of this pencil anytime soon and he knows it. This is all part of the game.

The adrenaline from both the spell and being so close to Bonnie sends his heart racing. The rain has her absolutely soaked and her clothes are sticking to her lithe form, so thin it’s practically see through. Kai refused to look lower than her collarbone because, well, Bonnie is a nineties fashionista. Obviously she wore the trends of that decade, being stuck in the Prison World for over twenty years doing nothing to hinder her eye for fashion. The thing is, in the nineties there was a certain trend that made it obvious if a girl was in a cold room. Kai could ignore it if it was Rachel Green on television, but Bonnie Bennett in real life? He was weak. The combination of the little trend with her beauty and strange charm is so overwhelming he fears he would kiss her right now. But he knows Bonnie is powerful enough to tear him to shreds. He would let her too. He would die happy knowing he got to taste her lips. He would die happy knowing he was killed by Bonnie Bennett.

Fuck.

Kai pushes that thought back away into the depths of his mind.

Repress. Repress. Repress.

His eyes fall onto her lips.

Bonnie looks up at Kai, who is much closer than she thought he would be. She stares up at him with a happy smile and sees that he’s looking at her with equal parts happiness and desire. He has been sending her lingering looks during their lessons and Bonnie feels as if she would melt under his gaze. This time is no different. His blue-grey eyes bore into hers with interest and he licked his lips at whatever thoughts he was having about her. Bonnie could feel his breath on her face, the warmth of it making her melt further into the ground. No one has ever looked at her like that before. It was different from the looks of amazement she received when she performed her own magic, when people would look at her with awe. When they looked at her like that she felt powerful-

“The grimoires!” She exclaims, suddenly remembering the books. She pushes him off of her to grab the books. These books held knowledge and her only permanent power in this world. Bonnie needed them on her at all times or they would be affected by the reset.

Bonnie’s words take Kai out of his own thoughts. What was he thinking? She is the enemy and he cannot let himself get side tracked by her pretty lips and barely-there clothes. And wanting to be killed by her? What the fuck is he on? He ignores her in favor of looking at the wet ground, catching his breath, counting to fifteen, and trying to get the intrusive thoughts out of his head.

“We should get out of the rain,” Bonnie says. “I don’t know when it’ll stop and I’m not looking forward to seeing if I can catch a cold.”

“Yeah,” Kai says, still a little dazed. Then in a more firm tone he says, “Yeah, lead the way.”

\---

“Do still you think I’m strong enough to perform the spell?” Kai asks, still in his wet clothes, as he pours hot chocolate into a mug.

“Yes,” Bonnie says, stirring her own hot chocolate. “At first I was thinking the spell wouldn’t work or there was something wrong with it.  _ But _ then I realized it needs two witches, same as the Ascendant. When we combine our covens- for lack of a better term- we can do powerful spells. That was weather and reality manipulation, which is way stronger than being able to use the Ascendant.” 

“So we’ll go home?” Kai asks.

“I have no doubt.” Bonnie replies, looking at him over her mug.

Even if she is stuck with him, Bonnie does enjoy the domesticity. In all her years alone, she forgot what being around people was like. To have someone there, not necessarily doing something with her. Just being there. Bonnie feels like a child again, drinking hot chocolate after practicing magic. 

There is a loud door slam and Damon walks in, absolutely soaked. “I assume this was your doing.” He says dryly.

“Absolutely.” Bonnie says proudly. 

“Want any hot chocolate?” Kai asks but the question makes the vampire even more irritated. 

“Sure, but let’s talk for a moment. In private.” He glances at Bonnie. She raises a brow at him but does not fight him on it.

“I know when I’m not wanted.” Bonnie says sourly and takes the mug with her to her room.

Once she’s out of earshot, Damon pushes Kai. “What the hell? Yesterday you were all gung-ho about killing her, now you’re playing magical house with her?”

“That’s rich considering you used her as your late night snack,” Kai says. “And keep your voice down. The weather spell we just cast used the same amount of magic we need to get out of here. We’ll be out of here this time tomorrow.”

Damon smiles, pleased, then looks at Kai suspiciously. “When you say ‘we’ do you mean us two or all three of us?”

“Why do you even need to ask that? You didn’t even care about her.”

“Because your self-righteous ass turned her into a whole ethical dilemma that kept us here for an extra day. Because you’re the one who wanted to question her when I wanted to let her free. You’re the one who pissed her off when we could have gotten out of here. You’re the one who keeps making excuses to keep us here. It’s your fault we’re here in the first place!” Damon says with all the hate inside of him. “So if you could just make up your mind about her, I would love to leave already.”

And Kai doesn’t contradict him because he knows it’s true.

It is his fault they ended up here.

When his brother brought him back to life, Kai realized resurrection has the unfortunate side effect of making you numb.

His psychology textbook said it was depression but Kai was pretty such that wasn’t it.

Class. Cook. Try to sleep. Wake up screaming. Homework. Class. Laugh with friends. Act normal. Repeat.

It was routine. An easy routine Kai can follow. He plays the part well, follows the routine and it’s  _ fine _ . It’s fine.

It’s fine.

It’s  _ fine _ .

Until it’s not.

He carved messages into the library desk before one of his classes. _ I think about death and I don’t think I’ll ever be alright. _

He pressed a knife against his skin to see how far it’ll go in before he lets himself draw blood.

He pokes around his mom’s secret witch objects because he wants to be reckless with magic. Have fun with it. 

It’s there he finds the Ascendant. Damon is there, trying to get him to use his magic for him and Elena’s anniversary. Kai was the one to cut himself and inadvertently activate the Ascendant which blasted the two of them to this static hell.

A world he has been trying to get out of so he can see his family once again.

“I’m sorry Damon.” Kai says. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

“Did you make up your mind?” Damon says, not caring for the college student’s apology.

“Yes.”

\---

When Bonnie gets to her room, she quickly locks the door and begins to chant the spell for astral projection. Bonnie knows- either through her psychic powers or just simple intuition- that Damon is going to do something that will interfere with her plans. Ever since he told her about his human life, Bonnie refuses to trust the vampire. Even without knowing his history Bonnie doubts she would like him. She sees how Damon treats Kai. It looks too much like how Bonnie was treated by certain members of the Gemini. If she were actual friends with Kai she would find a way for him to defend himself but the both of them are just using each other so she has no motivation to help him. 

When she finishes, Bonnie opens her eyes to see herself floating over her body. Bonnie hated astral projection for this disturbing reason. She could see every pore on her face, it was gross. And has her face been that oily this whole time? Ew. If Kai had been staring at her all moon eyed, what did the girls in the present day look like? Bonnie shuddered to think grunge was still a popular trend in the present. Not to sound like a traitor to her generation but if the 90’s greasy hair covered with a hat and double denim are still in style, Bonnie would rather stay in this little hellhole.

She floated downstairs and listened to the boys talk. Damon was airing out all his feelings about his predicament, which Bonnie had to laugh at because if he thinks being here for a few months with her and Kai is so bad, he would have never survived being her. Bonnie listens some more, only half-paying attention because she did not care much for what Damon was saying.

Then he catches her attention. 

“So if you could just make up your mind about her, I would love to leave already.”

Bonnie sits on the table and leans forward, waiting for Kai’s response. What  _ did _ Kai think of her? She’s seen the way he looks at her so obviously he had some romantic, no sexual, no more than platonic feelings for her. But was that enough to overcome his pesky morals and let her free? Bonnie had plenty of crushes in the past, she wasn’t the sexless weapon the Gemini coven thought she was, and she did her best to win their affections but she never sacrificed her goals for them. 

“I’m sorry Damon.” Kai says. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

“Did you make up your mind?” Damon says and Bonnie finds herself curious as well.

“Yes.” Kai sighs. Bonnie straightens up and waits for him to finish his thought.

“Well?” Damon asks impatiently. 

“We’re leaving her here.” Kai says firmly. Bonnie froze and replayed his answer in her head. Kai was a Gemini after all, she should have expected this.

“So what’s your plan?” Damon asks, glad to finally have a concrete answer from the witch.   
  


“If she’s been telling the truth during our lessons, I’ve built up the power to get out of here. The spell is in one of her grimoires, if we can get our hands on it before the next eclipse, we can go home.”

The night they hugged it out, she never promised to not kill his family. She did consider just killing Joshua rather than everyone responsible for putting her here. Actually, that’s a lie, she was always going to kill everyone who left her here and no one was going to stand in the way of her goal. Bonnie just considered hunting them down one at a time over the course of a few years rather than all at once. Nonetheless, since Kai did not hold the same respect for her, she was not going to give it to him anymore. But, she had to handle one problem at a time. Clearly all the lessons she’s been giving him has not proved her worth to him and only made him overconfident in his abilities. Bonnie thinks back to the day she told him she was a siphon. Did she tell him she was lying about the place draining witch magic? Not exactly, she just explained how her magic works. 

The boys knew she was evil but they have never seen her be evil.

Bonnie will gladly give them a small demonstration.

Bonnie’s spirit traveled back into her body and waited for the boys to go back to their rooms. She watched as the clock ticked down eleven, when both boys would be asleep. They never strayed from their sleep schedule for whatever reason in their many months in the Prison World. Thank goodness, Bonnie thinks, glad she was patient enough to observe them before introducing herself. It was finally paying off. She cloaked herself for extra protection, though the spell she used was fairly weak because she was running out of magic. Not that that was going to be an issue for much longer.

Bonnie slowly turned the knob to Kai’s bedroom, careful not to let the door creak. She slipped inside to see his slumbering figure on the bed. Kai was softly snoring, letting Bonnie know he was actually asleep. She stood by his bed, thankful he didn’t wear a shirt to bed. Bonnie dropped the cloaking spell to reach out and grab Kai’s exposed arm. She feels him tense up at first before relaxing. Bonnie wonders if he has foolishly adapted to her touch from all the times she has touched him during his lessons. She enjoys the feeling of his smooth skin before re-focusing on her task. She begins to take away his magic. 

\---

Kai dreams of pain and digging a hole in the ground.

\---

Immediately, Bonnie’s lungs fill with air and her veins sing. Magic makes her feel complete in a way nothing else can and she holds on a little longer. A wave of warmth covers her and Bonnie feels the power flood her body. She stares at Kai as she siphons him, not letting herself even blink in fear of seeing his memories. Bonnie sometimes worries that seeing Kai’s memories will give her second thoughts about killing Joshua, any possible positive memory of the old man could cross the wires in her head and make her spare the man. She refuses to let anything get in the way of killing Joshua Parker. She forces herself to stare at Kai instead and honestly, she could have a worse view. Bonnie can feel almost all his magic inside of her and lets go of the witch. She looks at the clock on the wall and sees she has about fifteen minutes until the next day. Bonnie opens the window and jumps out, using her newly gained abilities to fly into the forest. She lands rather ungracefully onto the forest floor. 

Bonnie wants to set the whole forest on fire but she cannot risk one of the boys seeing the flames or smelling the smoke so she puts her hands on the soft dirt. The magic in her veins is not from her familyline so her connection is not quite there but she can still feel nature in a way only a Bennett can. She digs into the soil with her nails, not minding the dirt getting trapped in her nails. The feeling of magic and nature is something she had missed in the over two decades in the Prison World. Bonnie let go of the soil and stood up. Combining magic and nature is something she had loved doing when she was learning magic.

The leaves, pine needles, and grass began to levitate off the ground until it hovered above her raised hands. Oh, she hadn’t done this spell in decades. She lets out a laugh at the memory of when she last performed it. She spots a tree, a couple feet in front of her. Bonnie throws her hands in front of her and the pieces of nature fly at the tree, sharp as knives, and bury themselves in the tree’s exterior. Bonnie throws her hands around, as if she’s throwing the objects themselves rather than telekinetically doing it herself. Some rocks of varying sizes are also levitated and she throws them at the tree, creating craters in the wood. She imagines the tree is everyone who has ever made her feel worthless, less than. She imagines their bodies being torn by nature rather than the tree and leaving bloody corpses behind. Bonnie continues to throw whatever her magic can get its hands on at the tree. She doesn’t even notice she’s been walking towards the tree until she reaches its roots. Her body has been drained of all its stolen magic and she has been turned back into a young girl rather than a full witch. 

Bonnie stares up at the tree’s messed up trunk, the many rocks and leaves and pine needles and grass tearing the trunk to shreds. She puts her hand on the tree, imaging the fake static little thing is screaming in pain like it would in the real world. Bonnie deeply inhales and on the exhale, pushes the tree to the ground. She is the only one to hear it fall and the only one to see it crash onto the ground. It makes Bonnie feel relaxed. She’s not sure what ‘it’ is, either the extreme violence of her actions or the feeling of being special but she feels relaxed. 

In any case, Bonnie feels better, so much so in fact, that she doesn't mind that it is twelve o’clock and the tree is in its original upright position. She falls forward and hugs the tree, inhaling the smell of pines and dirt. She takes a deep breath and lets go to walk back to the Salvatore Boardinghouse. She would need all the rest she can get once Kai realizes he no longer has any magic inside of him.

Bonnie’s good mood does not last for very long.

First of all, not being near all the clothes she collected in the last month means that they went back to its original places when the clock struck twelve. This meant she only got a few hours of sleep before she had to break into one of the shops and steal a new outfit. Unfortunately, Mystic Falls is a small town so she was only able to find a pair of sweatpants before either boy would wake up. She looked stylish in a sports bra and sweatpants but she still had to wake up early only to find sweatpants.

Additionally, Bonnie knew draining Kai of his powers for the day would set her plans back a day. She prepared to adjust to the change in plans before going to sleep with the confidence that it will pay off in the end. Being trapped in the Prison World has gifted Bonnie the virtue of patience after all. Patience was a lesson beaten into her but a lesson she learned nonetheless. She will be patient. She will wait to see if they betray her. Then she will attack.

What puts Bonnie in a foul mood is how Kai acts. As predicted, Kai’s magic is not working which leads to the witch growing frustrated.

Kai angrily shouts the spell Bonnie crafted and small sparks come out of his finger tips. The first sign of magic he’s had all day. She looks at him with false concern. 

“You wanna try ‘motus’ again?” She asks, leaning back in her seat.

Kai bunches his fists at the mention of the beginner level spell. “Are you sure this spell even fucking works?”

“Yes, actually.” Bonnie says, insulted at the question. “I’m not fucking worthless like you seem to be right now.”

Kai’s nostrils flare. “This place probably drained my powers again. And I’m not the witch without any magic!”

He takes a step closer to Bonnie but the short haired witch stands her ground. “Well a witch who can’t do any magic is basically the same as a witch without any magic!”

Kai’s eyes catch as Bonnie’s hands ball into fists. He wants her to hit him. He wants her to scratch him. He wants her to tear his eyes out. He wants her to do something to justify his actions later. He wants to stop seeing himself in her so he provokes her further. He’s doing it for his family.

Kai steps closer to her. “A witch without any magic isn’t a real witch. You’re just a little girl who wants what she can’t have.”

Something in his words makes Bonnie freeze. She locks eyes with Kai but all she sees is Joshua Parker. The resemblance makes Bonnie go back, back to when she was a teenager. A mean girl out for blood. A mean girl who was afraid and alone. But she takes in a deep breath. She is not that teenage girl anymore. Bonnie is a twenty-one year old woman who has a goal and will not let anything get in the way of that goal. 

But Bonnie is still a mean girl so she takes a deep breath and spits out, “You know what? You’re just tired. Go back inside, go on a walk, jerk off, take a nap, I don’t care. Just come back when you’ve calmed down. We can’t lose any more time because of your hissy fit.”

Kai says nothing but pushes past her, bumping her shoulder as he does, and stalks into the house. But that is the last straw for Bonnie. She takes her shoe off and throws it at him. It doesn’t hit Kai but it does get his attention. He stalks back to Bonnie and grabs the hand that threw the shoe.

“If you think you can do better, why don’t you take my powers and get out of here yourself?” He growls, so close to her face their noses almost touch. He wraps her hand around his arm and braces himself for the pain.

Of all the outcomes Bonnie could have predicted, Kai letting her take his powers was not one of them. Thankfully, though she is caught off-guard, Bonnie has enough control not to siphon his powers. It would throw a wrench into her plans, she is sure. Instead she rubs small circles onto his surprisingly firm forearm. Bonnie hopes it will make him blush and stutter like he always does when she puts her hands on him.

The red in Kai’s vision dissipates and he looks down at where his hand is wrapped around hers. He can feel her tiny thumb rubbing circles on his forearm, not in any way Kai would consider ritualistic or witch like but in a comforting way. The gesture makes him angry once again. He’s not falling for her tricks again.

“Looks like I’m not the only one out of magic.” Kai sneers and throws her hand off of him and goes back into the house. Bonnie stares at his retreating figure.

\---

Bonnie finds Kai in his room, taking her suggestion and cooling off. She’s glad because if she saw Joshua Parker in him again, she thinks she might run away and never return.

“Let’s try it again.” She says, leaning against his doorway. Enough time has passed that Kai should have all his magic back.

Kai sits up on his bed. “Are you sure it’s going to work this time?”

“We’ll just have to hope for the best.” She replies. “But for what it’s worth- I do believe in you.” She tells him sincerely.

There is no need for either of them to apologize to each other. They know each other too well and would see the insincerity of the apology. They’re both on the same page of how they see each other. It’s a little sad and maybe more than a little heatless, Bonnie knows, but that’s life. At least with her telling him that she believes in him, Bonnie is giving him the praise he doesn’t get very often and proving that she does deserve to be free of her static little cage.

The two go to the front yard and practice the spell, this time for real. Bonnie verbalizes the spell and demonstrates the movements. The original spell uses a lot of Old French and Bonnie adjusted it to include some Latin to give way for reality manipulation. The hand movements are taken from the Canadian school Bonnie found while exploring New York (it took her three trips to realize the school was in Canada but the only entrance exists in New York). Making the spell took a lot of practice and studying to figure out and really it’s all theoretical at the moment. 

But Bonnie is a Bennett, and there is no force on any earth stronger than a Bennett. 

The spell will work. It will work because she is the one who made it.

Shame all her hard work has to be wasted on a white boy.

Bonnie tries not to be jealous.

Kai copies Bonnie’s movements and words. For a while nothing happens and Bonnie reconsults the grimoire and her notes. She drew upon a few different sources for this spell, perhaps it needs multiple sources of magic to work. Now the spell no longer became about getting out of the Prison World, it became about her proving that she was a Bennett. Her pride could not take it if she was not.

“Let’s join hands.” Bonnie says because she is greedy for touch. She takes his hands and closes her eyes. When she peeks to see his eyes are also closed, she gently siphons a little bit of his magic. 

“Keep your eyes closed so I feel your magic.” She lies. “Maybe you’ve got a mental block or something.”

“Are you going to siphon me?” Kai asks suspiciously. Bonnie would be offended at his paranoia if she hadn’t already siphoned a bit of his magic. 

“You’d know if I siphoned you.” She tells him. “Maybe if we said the spell together, it’d work. I think I’ve still got some magic in me from Damon’s ring.”

Kai opens his eyes and takes a step back. Bonnie does the same and starts the hand motions. Kai mirrors her movements. He speaks the spell first and Bonnie jumps in on the second line. When they finish, storm clouds are forming above them but other than that, do nothing. Just hang above them like a knife.

“Do it again.” Bonnie demands. “This time you say the spell, I’ll do the movements.” When they finish, rain begins to fall and lightning strikes Mystic Falls for the first time in almost two decades.

It appears her spell works if it’s repeated three times and broken up. Bonnie takes note of that when she runs under the umbrella with the grimoire. Kai follows her with a bright smile and she can’t help but smile as well. 

“I guess both of us need to work together to make some magic.” He breathes, locking his blue-grey eyes with Bonnie’s green. He swallows.

They’re both wet and so close to each other, they’re breathing in each other’s oxygen. It’s something Bonnie would have celebrated when she was younger, a cute guy looking down at her with all the love in his eyes, but Bonnie was no longer that girl. This woman celebrated something different. Her spell worked and she was finally getting out. 

\---

Before Bonnie can celebrate fully, she will have to prepare a Plan B in the event Kai and Damon are not convinced of her usefulness or her redemption.

While the boys are sleeping and the day resets, Bonnie goes to Amanda’s house. Amanda’s family were hunters, something Amanda would often brag about at slumber parties. Thankful for all the times she went to their house, Bonnie raids all their weapons out of their garage. She then scatters them in the forest leading to the Armory.

\---

The three Prison World inhabitants start their day with a celebratory breakfast. It’s a simple breakfast really, something that doesn’t require a lot of work because Bonnie and Kai are excited to have someone else cook them food for the first time in forever. The three of them follow the Ascendant to the location they need to go home. The location however takes them to the middle of the forest. 

“Is this a joke?” Kai asks, looking around the empty forest.

Bonnie purses her lips and bunches her eyebrows, also confused as to where the Ascendant has taken them. It’s a little further from the weapons Bonnie scattered around the forest but she thinks if she stalled enough, she could get one of the weapons into her hands. It was only a matter of getting magic that she needed. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Bonnie muses aloud, walking in small circles to see the Ascendant change shape. “The Armory or whatever must move on its own and right now,” She stomps her feet. “It’s underground.”

She smiles in triumph. “Well, Darrell-”

“Damon.” The vampire corrects.

Bonnie continues without acknowledging him. “Looks like it’s your time to start pulling your weight. Go grab some shovels in town and start digging.”

“Excuse me?” Damon asks with a raised brow.

“We’re the ones who’s got your ticket out and well, it’s only fair we save our energy isn’t it? You’ve got that vampire strength on your side after all.” Bonnie smiles saccharinely and tucks the Ascendant into her backpack.

“I agree with her,” Kai says, glad to let Damon do some heavy lifting for once. Damon stares at the two witches with disbelief and vampire runs back into town to grab a pickaxe and a shovel. The witches look at each other and share a smile.

\---

Damon returns to dig and dig into the soft dirt. Rather than be helpful, Bonnie and Kai lean against a tree and make halfhearted comments about Damon’s progress as retribution for when he made comments about their magic. 

“Tik-tok, tik-tok,” Bonnie taunts. “It’s almost eclipse time.”

Kai offhandedly remembers watching ‘Holes’ with his brother and how Shia LeBeouf’s hole had to be as deep and wide as the shovel. He remembers how Shia LeBeouf dug and dug looking for the treasure Kissing Kate Barlow buried. It took Sigourney Weaver decades to look for that treasure only for Shia LeBeouf to find it his first month of camp. It was ripped away from her, the very thing she looked for decades but could not find until a newcomer came along to find it and take it. The thing she abused others to find. The thing she killed others for. The thing that was she was just cold blooded enough to keep all to herself. Kai looked over at Bonnie, who was looking at her pink nails. She was Signourney Weaver and he was Shia LeBeouf.

Damon catches Kai’s eye and he makes a gesture towards the girl holding the Ascendant. 

Bonnie stares at Damon. “Why did you stop? We have a little bit before the eclipse starts.”

“How are we so sure you’re not just making us dig our own grave?” Kai asks. 

Bonnie scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What’s the spell to get out of here?” Kai asks.

Bonnie raises a brow. “I can’t tell you that yet.”

“Why not?”

“What if you try to leave me behind?” She points out.

“Why don’t you just show it to me?” Kai pushes and Bonnie rolls her eyes again. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell us the spell.”

Bonnie purses her lips and returns to looking at her nails. Both boys look at her expectantly. 

“Are we really not going anywhere?” Damon asks after a moment.

Bonnie looks up as if noticing them for the first time with a smile. “You weren’t serious?”

Kai takes a step closer to Bonnie. “How about this- why don’t you just do it yourself?”

“What are you playing at?” Bonnie asks, noting how close he stood in front of her.

“If you’re not going to show it to me, you can do it yourself. Why not just take my powers?” He holds his hand out. Bonnie licks her lips and smiles at the offer.

“Look who’s becoming brave.”

“I’m serious. I’m not that powerful even with all your lessons. And you said this place is draining us of our magic so it’s only a matter of time before I’m just a normal human. Then we’ll all be stuck here. And if I don’t participate you’ll just take my power and leave us here for dead anyway. So do it.” He sticks his hand out closer to Bonnie. “Take my magic. Take all of it.”

Bonnie smiles, glances at Damon who looks unsure of what his friend is doing then back at Kai. If he wants to be brave… 

“Don’t mind if I do.” Bonnie says and grabs onto his wrists. Kai gasps and tenses, clearly not expecting it to hurt as much as it does. It’s not the worst pain Kai has been through but it is still surprising given Bonnie’s small stature. Bonnie smiles up at him while she does this, a bright and sadistic smile. This is the first time in a long time she was allowed to siphon someone without real worry. No longer did she have to carefully extract a person’s magic or surgically remove a specific aspect of their power so as to not raise suspicion. Bonnie digs her nails into his flesh as if the action will give her more power.

Bonnie’s mistake however, is enjoying Kai’s pain. The longer the siphoning goes on, the more Kai recognizes the pain. It’s the same pain he gets when he dreams the same strange dream every other night. She is the one who had been plaguing his sleep with pain. It all starts to click together. This place wasn’t why he was losing his powers- it was all because of her!

Kai’s eyes widen and his jaw drops. 

“You!” He spits out and pushes her away. 

“Me,” Bonnie stumbles back but smiles and gives a half shrug.

“What are you talking about?” Damon asks, cautiously, rising out of the hole.

“She’s been visiting me in my sleep to siphon off my magic. You’re why we’ve been here for so long.” Kai says angrily.

“Yep.” She says cheerfully. “But aren’t you glad you got to spend a little more time with me?”

Angrily, Kai says ‘Motus’ and an axe flies at Bonnie. She laughs at the basic spell and catches the axe midair. 

“I gave you all those lessons, so you could do a basic one? Tragic.” She spins the axe around. Angry, Kai repeats the spell and the axe buries itself into Bonnie’s torso while she holds it. She lets go of the axe and looks at the boy in surprise. Red stains her lacy white shirt. Kai thinks he sees the start of a smile before Bonnie collapses onto the ground. The boys stare at her corpse before Kai hops back into the hole and returns to digging.

“What did you just do?” Damon asks, surprised at what happened before his eyes.

“I sped up betraying her. She would have led us to a death trap anyway.” Kai says, taking her backpack off and dumping its contents on the ground. A bunch of grimoires, a pager, a walkman, some hair ties, three tubes of the same shade of red lipstick, and a teddy bear fall out. Kai ignores the rest in favor of the Gemini grimoire. “I’m going to flip through this thing and see if I can find the spell. Keep digging.”

“What makes you think you’ll find what she missed?”

“It’s my family’s grimoire.” Kai answers simply.

Damon glances at Bonnie’s corpse then shrugs, getting back to work.

It takes a while as the Gemini grimoire has a lot more pages than it looks like it would. Thankfully, though, Kai does find it. It’s near the end of the book, circled with red lipstick. Kai lets out a little laugh and glances at Bonnie’s corpse. Looks like she knew the spell after all.

\---

Kai stands in the center of the Armory, holding the Ascendant in his palm. He looks up at Damon and the two share a smile. It’s almost time to go home. Damon stands in front of him, ready for the next step. Kai looks up at the sky, ready for the eclipse to start. It is then that Damon goes flying across the cave, suspended in midair. Kai turns to see Bonnie, alive and bloody and the teddy bear’s head sticking out of her backpack, walking into the room with her hand up.

“You’re not leaving without me.” Bonnie says with a cold anger. 

“Let him go.” Kai demands.

“Not until I’m out of here. When that portal lights up, I’m going in first then the two of you can follow.”

Without waiting for an answer, Bonnie raises her hand and a machete flies from above and into her hand. Kai’s heart starts to beat quickly. With her smile and blade, he is frozen. He can only focus on her. They are the only two people in the world.

“You know what’s the best part of knives?” She asked, playing with the blade. She twirls it around, slashes the air, then extends her arm so the blade is a breath’s width away from his lips. Kai is proud of how he doesn’t flinch but his heart does beat faster. “The intimacy of it.”

She walks to him, slowly closing the space between them. “The eye contact,”  _ Step.  _ “The closeness.”  _ Step. _ “You can’t do this with a gun.”  _ Step _ . “A rope.”  _ Step _ . “An  _ axe _ .”

Bonnie brings one hand to his shoulder, pulling him closer. The knife presses against his lips, enough to hurt but not enough to break skin. Her eyes never tear away from his and it makes his heart beat faster. He can feel her breath on him, calm and collected. Kai once heard that if someone maintained eye contact for over seven seconds, they either wanted to kill you… or fuck you. Even as she holds her knife to his lips, he can’t tell which one Bonnie is thinking of. Her face looks focused but her eyes are dialated to the point of being completely black.

Bonnie tilts the blade, moving it in a twisted way similar to how a lover would wipe away a stain from your lips. Kai holds his breath. The blade digs in deeper and Kai feels the sting of torn skin. The hand on his shoulder clutches him possesively as Bonnie watches a river of blood stains her knife. She lets go of him and pulls away, holding the knife like precious gold. She carefully lets the blood fall onto the Ascendant. 

Before either boy has time to comprehend exactly what happened, the world goes dark. The eclipse has begun.

“Hands.” Bonnie says, reaching out her hands and the Ascendant. Her and Kai join hands.

They begin to chant the spell and the Ascendant clicks mechanically, the machine wiring and changing shape. Soon the metal grows too hot to touch and the two witches drop the Ascendant, jumping away from the center. A bright light grows from above. 

Something blossomed in Bonnie’s chest and she could not hold back her smile. She was finally going home. Oh how she had longed for this day, prayed for this day, dreamt of this day. She knew the world out there was different, but after so many years of the same day, she was ready for different.

Damon is dropped as Bonnie watches the portal and he wastes no time running towards the portal. Bonnie’s eyes do not tear away from the light as it grows brighter and brighter. She can imagine the world just beyond the portal, practically smell the pollution coming from it. The room begins to fill with electricity and magical energy. She can finally go home.

While Bonnie is distracted, Kai and Damon look at each other and nod. Kai uses his fingers to count.

_ One… _

The portal finishes expanding. Bonnie can practically smell the outside world from here, hear the birds and cars and people! Oh she has missed people. 

Damon and Kai stand side by side, understanding what needs to be done.

_ Two… _

Damon steps forward, ready to launch himself through the portal and see Elena again. Kai’s eyes are locked on Bonnie. She looks relieved and her eyes are watering at the chance to go home. It almost hurts him to do this. 

_ Three! _

Kai launches himself at Bonnie, knocking the tiny witch to the ground and away from the portal. 

“What the hell?” She screams and pushes him off of her. Bonnie runs to the portal but Kai grabs her ankle and she falls onto the ground with a cry. Kai drags her back and scrambles to his feet. Damon stands near the light, an electric cracking filling everyone’s ears. When Damon turns around, the portal has begun to shrink, the eclipse beginning its end. It’s slowly shrinking but it’s shrinking nonetheless.

“Kai, get over here!” Damon yells. Kai runs towards the portal but Bonnie throws the machete at him which buries into his back and sends him rolling across the ground. He sends another bolt of magic that throws her against the wall.

“Jump in now!” The vampire demands. He and Kai will never be close but dammit if he won’t abandon him now.

Kai looks up at the vampire then back and Bonnie then to the vampire again. His eyes are filled with tears. He grabs a rock by his hand.

Is it fear that life moved on without him? Is it knowing his role is to be the sacrificial lamb? Is it the fact the knife is making him bleed out? Whatever the reason, Kai knows what he must do.

“Tell my family I love them.” Kai tells Damon. 

The vampires flies into the bright light before Kai slams the rock onto the Ascendant. The magical objects let out a heart wrenching crack. The portal blinks out of existence and with it, Damon and Kai’s last hope of seeing his family again.

“What happened?” Bonnie asks, standing up. The magic was there, she felt it and now she’s left with a cold, empty feeling in her chest. “What’s going on? What did you do? Kai, what happened? What did you do!” She screamed the last part. 

“I’m sorry Bonnie, but I can’t let you out.” He doesn’t look at her, staring at his latest dumb, sacrifical decision. He stands up.

“I want to go home.” Bonnie says the hurt evident in her voice. She stands right behind him.

“You’re in here for a reason and I can’t just let you go.” He turns to face her, Kai’s shirt getting progressively more red. He moves so she can see the pieces of the Ascendant lying in the sand. 

“No, no, no!” Bonnie screamed, she dove to the ground, the tiny pieces of the Ascendant falling between her fingers. 

She stands up again and screams, “No, no, no!” She weakly hitting his chest with every word. She was so  _ close. _ Bonnie falls to his feet. 

“Please, I want to go home, Kai. Undo it, fix it. Fix it please, please. I’ll do anything. Anything you ask. Let me go home. Please.” She reached out to grab Kai’s hand but he took a step back. She stared at him. He took away her last hope and now he wouldn’t even give her the small comfort of touch?

“Damn you,” She said, angry tears falling down her face. “Damn you, damn you, damn you!” She shouts.

She sobbed loud cries, fat tears hitting the sand. Bonnie fell forward, not caring that sand was attaching itself to her face. Her sobs rocked her core and she could do nothing to stop her tears from falling.

“We’re stuck here.” Kai says, hollowing.

“No,” She shakes her head and looks him in the eye. “You’re stuck in here with me.”

Then Bonnie smiles. With that smile Kai remembers certain animals bare their teeth as a sign of aggression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to publish this new chapter. A combination of moving across the country (esp. during COVID), the last chapter's lack of comments, and writers block made it difficult to write but I hope the end result was worth it. I hope now that I'm pretty much settled in that I can get back to my usual posting schedule but I can't make any promises. But fingers crossed because Dark!Bonnie will make an appearance.
> 
> Please leave a comment!


	5. Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little Bennett family magic lore, North American and Brazilian coven lore, and a whole lot of torture.
> 
> Some could call it cruel to do these things to your coven and your family but witches would respond with “How do you punish criminals? A prison sentence?” These punishments were the same as prison sentences. Even death was a prison sentence if a witch was strong enough. If you argue that sometimes the punishment didn’t fit the crime the witches would respond that they, like the American Justice System, weren’t perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for: lots of torture, child abuse, death, some well deserved shots at the American Justice System, things that could trigger eating disorders, and scenes inspired by the rated R movie, Logan
> 
> Also 22-23 pages

When witches discovered someone in their coven betrayed them, they would kill the traitor. Covens were meant to be built on trust and family. To violate this trust meant that they were undeserving of the love the coven gave them and must be met with hate instead. Death was the only real way to punish traitors. Abigail Williams, the mother of the Gemini Coven, sent the traitors in her coven to their deaths at the Salem Witch Trials. Mariah Deveroux, the Leader of the French Quarter Witches, slit the throat of the witch who tried to kill her.

The Bennetts were not a coven so there were no rules to hold them back. They were free to choose whatever punishment they thought fit for traitors. Patience Bennett beheaded a member of another coven for plotting against her. Tiffany Bennett punished her sister by taking away her powers. Birdie Bennett poisoned the blood of her friend and husband when she discovered their affair. When the time came for Bonnie, she chose a traditional method of killing her traitorous family (plus two others). It was the way of the witches. 

Some could call it cruel to do these things to your coven and your family but witches would respond with “How do you punish criminals? A prison sentence?” These punishments were the same as prison sentences. Even death was a prison sentence if a witch was strong enough. If you argue that sometimes the punishment didn’t fit the crime the witches would respond that they, like the American Justice System, weren’t perfect.

However, when you still need that particular traitor alive what is there to do? In the present day it was uncommon to kill a witch for hurting the coven but this often meant the punishments were worse than death. An Ontario Coven worked around this by placing their criminals in magically induced comas so they may use the criminal’s body however they pleased. The punishment was the person knowing exactly what was happening and having no power to stop them. A coven in Rio and their branch in Miami would punish these particular criminals by forcing them into a lifetime of service and a choice between an amputation of the tongue or their dominant hand. In the French Quarter witches who say, ritually killed children, were sent to a madhouse for witches as punishment until the day they died. Other times the witch would be cut off from the ancestors, and therefore their magic until the end of time. This would mean they would also not have an afterlife to go to. Other times, the witch would be used as a guinea pig for elementary aged witches. The punishment varied depending on the crime. The Bennetts took a page from their oldest and most important ancestor, Questiyah and cursed their enemy with immortality and imprisoned them. When the person who imprisoned them would die, a vial of mortality would be brought to the traitor who had the choice of waiting for freedom or facing who awaits them on the other side. The Bennetts would enter the traitor’s cage under the cover of night and take whatever they needed from the criminal, be it blood, venom, or knowledge.

But Bonnie wasn’t in the mood to do any of that. She tried being nice to him but that clearly didn’t work out for her. It was time for her to be mean. No, not mean. Mean was for children. It was time for her to be cruel. Bonnie wanted to fill the streets with the Parker family’s blood. But for now she will settle for just Kai.

“Kai Parker!” Bonnie roared. Her eyes flashed and the whole forest was set on fire.

Kai cursed to himself and ran away from the flames. While doing so he tries to recall, rather ironically, any one of the spells Bonnie taught him that would extinguish the flames.

\---

She was being hunted like a dog in the streets. She tripped over an exposed root, giving the witches time to surround her. She watched as they circled around her, scared at what they may do to her. Luckily for Bonnie, she had her mother’s magic coursing through her veins. In all her lessons, Bonnie learned of the Bennetts’ special connection to the earth. She dug her hands into the dirt, determined to see how deep that connection went.

She screamed viscerally and the pine needles and wood began to rise from the earth. Wind whipped around everyone’s ears and before any of the hunters could fire at their prey, Bonnie sent the earth flying at them. 

The pine needles and twigs swirled around them, embedding themselves into each person’s skin. Cruelly, Bonnie increased the speed of the wind so the twigs and pine needles went  _ through _ each person’s skin. Blades of grass cut deep into the hunters’ skin and tore themselves out. The witches hunting her were in too much pain to strike down their prey so eventually Bonnie took pity on them. She froze her movements and concentrated on getting the twigs and pine needles out of the hunters’ bodies. 

Without the wind flying everything in the air, Bonnie was able to see the fruits of her labor. Each hunter had various twigs and pine needles sticking out of them. Their skin was covered in blood and wounds and at least three hunters had their eyes ripped out. She smiled when she saw their bloody bodies and ripped the twigs and pine needles out of their flesh- and took out chunks of their flesh as well. It was like watching meat explode. Bonnie herself was covered in blood, making her smile. She stood up and saw nothing remained of the witches who hunted her down but piles of bloody meat with twigs sticking out of them. The second wave of witches would come for her soon.

Bonnie Bennett knew she would be caught and dealt with eventually. But today was not going to be that day.

“Oink, oink motherfuckers.” She teases and slammed her fists into the ground. The ground cracked into two, causing what remained of the witches to fall into the Earth.

\---

When Kai Parker was in high school, he got detention for missing too many days of school. The rest of the MFG got out of it because of their individual roles in sports teams so it was just Kai and the stoner kid in detention with the gym teacher. The punishment was to run four miles after school around the track. Before discovering the existence of magic and vampires and werewolves and witches, this would have been a real punishment for Kai. Before, he probably would have needed the whole day to run the entire day to finish the four miles. But ever since the existence of discovering said supernaturals, he was done detention in less than an hour because running from danger became a fixture in his day to day life.

Dangerous situations like Kai’s current situation for example.

He is going to blame his blood loss on his stupid decision on leaving himself trapped with an experienced, intelligent, and angry siphoner witch. He’s sure if he wasn’t in excruciating pain, he would be making logical decisions. Then again, when it’s his family involved, Kai rarely makes rational decisions regarding his well-being. 

Kai hears Bonnie scream his name with all the fury in her tiny body. 

He curses his stupidity once again.

Damon better protect his family after this.

Kai runs from the Armory as far as his feet will take him. But with the knife wound in his back, there was a limit to how far he could run. He is thankful that he was at least able to extinguish the forest fire by creating a storm with the magic pencil spell. Now he’ll die of blood loss instead of smoke inhalation. 

Bonnie watches Kai stagger away, a little surprised he was able to run that far. Then again, the boy had freakishly long legs so perhaps genetics were on his side. Bonnie focused on the boy, like a hunt with his prey. Her eyes followed him, waiting for the right moment to strike. Bonnie remembered the Bennetts who came before her. Her mother told her how their family’s magic expanded its reach and evolved, essentially becoming the parents of all magic. Even before Qetsiyah created immortality, the ancestors before her created magic. How they could manipulate nature and bend the elements to their will. Most spells created by Bennetts have their origins in nature and all its elements. And Bennetts created magic. 

And most spells, and supernatural beings are made with magic.

Even vampires were made with Bennett magic.

Air magic evolved from summoning wind to speed to flying to causing storms to sound manipulation to telekinesis.

Vampire speed came from air, using it to push them further, faster than anyone before them.

Earth magic evolved from gardening to moving boulders to summoning earthquakes to harnessing strength to healing bones.

Vampire strength came from the earth, their bones becoming as strong and as dense as the earth itself.

Fire magic evolved from summoning sparks to purification to immortality to battle spells to astral manipulation.

Vampire immortality came from the lack of heat their bodies produce. Their bodies are forever frozen in the bodies they died in.

Water magic evolved from cleaning drinking water to controlling the weather to healing to puppet mastery.

Vampire compulsion came from water. A person’s blood spoke to the vampire and the vampire gave a command.

Humans are mostly water. 

_ Kai _ is mostly water.

Bonnie watches the boy run across the woods, like a predator watching its prey. She waited for the right moment to strike…

Bonnie stood up straight with her hands stretched out in front of her. She focused on the blood in her veins. The sound of her heartbeat filled her ears. She focused on the blood in his veins. The sound of his heartbeat filled her ears. Bonnie focused on their blood in  _ their  _ veins and the beating of their hearts became synchronized.

Bonnie’s hands turn into fists and she pulls them tightly against her body.

A twig snaps in the distance and then silence.

Bonnie opens her eyes and slowly walks forward, carefully as not to move too much lest she lose her concentration, to see Kai frozen in a running position. His body is shaking, trying to will itself to move to no avail. Bonnie wonders if he can breathe under her spell. Bonnie takes a step forward and so does Kai. She smiles, glad to be in control.

Vampire abilities looked much more smoother and sophisticated than when witches used them but Bonnie wouldn’t trade a witch’s magic for vampirism. With her magic, people could feel themselves being taken over by an outside force, by a higher power, by  _ Bonnie _ . And that feeling of power? Bonnie relishes in it.

“You think I’m going to let you out of my sight?” Bonnie chuckled and shook her head. “You’re still my ticket out of here and the only other person here. You’re stuck with me.”

Bonnie marches him to the Salvatore Boardinghouse, using up a significant amount of her borrowed magic to do so. When they reach the driveway, her nose starts to run. Bonnie takes it as a sign to pause her magic use. She straightens her body firmly, like a cadet meeting a superior officer. Kai’s body follows suit and straightens as well. She relaxes her body and Kai, whose body is stressed and tired from Bonnie’s puppetry, collapses on the ground ungracefully. Bonnie shakes off her stiffness and wipes away her bloody nose. She steps in above Kai, crouching down so she can see Kai’s eyes which are full of fear and hatred. Bonnie smiles.

Kai stares back at Bonnie’s sadistic smile until he can feel the blood in his veins rush to his head. He tries to fight the overwhelming darkness clouding his vision but there is nothing he can do to stop himself from sinking into the abyss.

\---

The world is blurry when Kai wakes up. When his vision clears, he sees that he’s on a familiar couch. He buries his face into the cushion and recognizes its scent. He inhales deeply, for once glad to be back in the Salvatore brothers’ house. Before Kai can hope that he is home safe, however, a voice crushes his hope.

“How do you feel?” A voice says from across the room. Kai blinks a couple times to see it’s Bonnie looking at him with a concerned expression. She’s changed into a clean oversized sweatshirt and a clean pair of sweatpants, a far cry from her usual valley girl outfits. A teddy bear rests on the counter next to her.

“Like I was stabbed in the back.” Kai can taste the metallic in his mouth. 

Bonnie smiles with an expression that says ‘whoops’. 

“Walked right into that one didn’t I?” She smirks, taking off her oven mitts.

“What did you do to me?” Kai says, his mouth dry.

“I did a little puppetry spell, a little excessive I know. But I will point out, you broke our deal first.” She points at him. “You know, when you  _ killed _ me. So really this is on you. But,” She sighs. “I must give you credit where credit is due. I mean, killing me with the axe I was holding in my hand with the same spell I was  _ just _ mocking? I mean,” She claps slowly while leaning against the countertop. “Well done.”

Kai sits up, groaning as he does so. Bonnie stops what she’s doing to help him sit up. “Careful, careful, you might tear one of your stitches.”

Kai pushes her away and pulls back his sleeve to reveal a scar on his back. “You couldn’t use your magic to heal me completely?”

Bonnie tilts her head so she can see the scar, pleased she left a permanent mark on him. “Be glad I used magic to make sure you won’t get an infection. And how about a thank you for not letting you die in the woods? I even started to cook something for you.”

He could smell the salmon cooking through the oven. The first meal they had together.

“I’m sure it was out of the goodness of your heart and not the fact you need me to get home.” Kai says flatly. 

“Come on, don’t tell me you don’t want to get home. I mean the martyrdom is lovely, a real credit to your character. But come on, you can’t tell me that it’s all actually worth it.” 

“I am happy to sacrifice myself as many times as I need to if it means that my family is safe from you.” Kai says firmly.

Bonnie rolls her eyes. “Cute. But trust me when I say, self sacrifice gets boring after a while.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never thought of anyone but themself.” Kai spits out.

Bonnie rolls her eyes again. She wasn’t about to divulge him in her oh so tragic backstory of self-sacrifice. “Fine. Be the  _ hero _ . But when you realize it’s not worth it just know I fixed the Ascendant.” 

Kai stares at her in shock then winces when he feels his stitches. “How? I thought-”

Bonnie cuts him off and stands up to look down at him. “You smashed it all to pieces? You did indeed, naughty boy. Be grateful I had a lot of time to myself down here.” 

She walked to the countertop and held up the device. “You’re welcome by the way.”

Kai walks over to the Bennett witch. True to her word, the Ascendant sits on the table perfectly intact. He leans in closer but Bonnie steals it from under his nose.

“Tsk, tsk,” She says walking away from him. “If you want the Ascendant, you’re going to have to do the spell with me. Afterall, I  _ am  _ the one who built up your strength  _ and  _ rebuilt the Ascendant after your little temper tantrum.”

Kai leans against the counter, his back hurting as he does, eyeing the pens scattered across it. “And what about my family? What happens to them when we leave this place?”

“Well, our original deal was to let them go free on the condition I’m let free.” She gives him a pointed look. “And while  _ you _ violated our agreement, I’m willing to make the same deal.”

Kai wasn’t born yesterday. He may be a fool, but he isn’t stupid. “You’re forgetting I don’t trust you to uphold your end.”

“Well, you broke the deal first so really it’s me going out on a limb here.” Bonnie snaps. She pauses to close her eyes and take a deep breath. She can’t afford to let her emotions get the best of her. She can’t afford to be stupid and reckless. 

“You don’t think I’m scared? Not just of you but of the outside world? I remember what you told me about everyone moving on without me.” Bonnie recalls and Kai looks at her, surprised she was actually listening to him. “For over twenty years life went on and I wasn’t there. That’s a horrifying thought. But I can’t let my fear of being a fish out of water hold me back.”

“Kai,” She says softly, vulnerably. “I need to get out of this place. You have no idea what it’s like to be stuck here. In this place.” She waves her hands around. “I’ve been here, alone, for over twenty years. Loneliness does things to you. But mostly it gives you time to think. I could have lived a life. A real, proper life. I could have been a mother. I could have gotten better. I could have become a better person.” She sighs.

“That’s a lot of what ifs.” Kai says, inching towards the pens. He glances up at Bonnie, who is lost in thought.

“Well I could live those what ifs if you could just let me out. I just want peace Kai,” She looks him in the eye. “I can’t get peace if I’m in here.”

“My family won’t get peace if you’re out there.” Kai points out.

Bonnie’s darken as she leans forward. “How are you going to protect your family if you’re in here, huh? You’re wrapped up with some vampire business and I guarantee you, their problems don’t stop at just one. They pile up. Vampires have accumulated a lot of enemies during their life. Who's to say if that I’d even be the one to kill your family? Your family could be killed by any number of them. Caught in the crossfire and just another casualty in a vampire’s long life.”

Her words make Kai freeze. Has Mystic Falls known peace since the Salvatores and their baggage have arrived into town? Has his family  _ ever _ been excluded from the fight? How many times has his family been hurt because of them? His hand wraps around the pen, clenching it tightly.

Bonnie pushes herself off the table and walks in front of Kai. “There’s also the Gemini’s enemies. I assure you, I’m not the only one they’ve made an enemy of. And with your mom and brother so removed from the coven’s protection? They’re easy pickings. Sure you might not have met any of their enemies yet but who’s to say they won’t swoop in and pick them off once they’re done with the vampires? And who’s going to be there to protect them when you’re stuck in here?”

The thought of his family put in harm’s way yet again is enough to make Kai see red. Before Bonnie can say another terrible, horrible word about his family, Kai takes the pen in his hand and jams it into her neck.

Bonnie’s eyes grow wide and blood begins to fill her mouth. She tries to speak, to make a single sound but her blood makes her gurgle the woods instead. Kai watches the light go out in her eyes before she falls to the ground, her blood staining the floor. Kai reaches down and grabs the Ascendant out of her pocket and runs out the door without a second glance. Kai can only hope he’s back home before she wakes up.

\---

When dealing with a supernatural civil war in your small town, it helps to be a quick learner. It’s good to pick up a few things like each species’ strengths and weaknesses.

When dealing with a supernatural civil war in your small town, it does not help to be a slow learner. It doesn’t help when you aren’t given the proper information and are told it’s a serial killer rather than a vampire. 

When it comes to these categories, Jake Parker fell into the former and Kai Parker fell into the latter.

It wasn’t Kai’s fault exactly. All the events connected to the vampires terrorizing Mystic Falls were connected to Elena Gilbert and her friends and it wasn’t Kai’s fault for only seeing the girl as his best friend’s older sister. Plus, everyone tried to keep it a secret from him because for some reason it wasn’t something he needed to know apparently. In fact, Kai was the last one in the MFG to even discover the supernatural presence plaguing the town.

Jake was the one who did most of the heavy lifting but it was Kai’s bookworm ways that made him a valuable member. Kai dug up all his mom’s secret spell books she kept hidden in the house and had Jake put them to use. When Jake asked where he found all these spells, rather than tell Jake the truth about him discovering his powers as a kid and ruining his vision of their mother, Kai just responds, “Craigslist” because the internet is a wild place to be.

Jake and the rest of the MFG accept this answer because what do they know? Besides, Jake is the one who reaps the rewards of magic. He becomes their go-to for all things magic related while Kai sits back and scans through the books. It doesn’t become an uncommon thought to believe that Jake is the superior twin. After all, reading and translating is nice and all but if you can’t actually apply it anywhere, what good is it? And since Jake is the one practicing the magic, how much good could the reading Kai has been doing?

Kai has long since accepted his place as second best when compared to his brother. Jake just has more charisma than Kai, more metals than Kai, and more bravery than Kai.

Which brings them to now.

Damon had kidnapped Kai under the belief he was Jake so he could take down the barrier keeping Katherine imprisoned inside a magical cave. Kai didn’t really listen to the vampire, he was more insulted that Damon meant to kidnap Jake instead of him. He was just as powerful as his brother. Sure he didn’t show it off all that much but he was still valuable.

If Kai can keep this barrier up, he can prove to them he isn’t the weaker Parker twin. Blood runs from Kai’s nose but he ignores it. He can do it.

“Kai, let me help.” Jake pleads to his brother. He tracked down Kai with a locator spell and was begging his brother to not bear it alone.

“Go, Jake!” Kai yells. “I can do it! Go!”

Jake stares at his brother- Kai’s bleeding nose and eyes are a clear indication he  _ can’t _ do it but Kai is the only one who knows the spell. 

“Fuck it,” Jake says and stands next to his brother. “You’re not dying without me.”

Jake begins chanting the words he heard him say to keep the barrier up. Kai stops his chanting to stare at his brother. Jake, however, does not return this look and keeps chanting. Kai rejoins the spell but does not take his eyes off his brother. It’s only when blood starts to run from Jake’s nose does Kai finally make a move. The both of them cannot die here, not now, and not certainly for people who threatened them. Their mother would never recover. 

Kai finishes the line of the spell and faces his brother. Before Jake can address his brother, he finds himself thrown back from the barrier by his brother. It’s only a moment but it’s enough for the entire barrier to come down. Kai puts his hands up, ready to start the spell again but it’s too late for multiple vampires to use it as their chance to escape. They knock over Kai as they flee the cave, meaning Kai is unable to put the barrier back up. And though Kai is covered in his own blood, the vampires opt for Jake as their first meal since their imprisonment.

Kai lifts his head up to see vampires surrounding his brother on the ground. There are so many vampires that Kai can only know it’s his brother by his screams. His brother’s blood curdling screams. Kai matches his brother’s screams with his own, unleashing enough magic to throw the vampires away from his brother and scatter into the woods for a different meal.

Kai runs over to his brother, tears in his eyes. It would be easy to assume the boy is dead as the vampires who fed on him made messy work of the jock. Jake’s shirt is drenched in blood from the multiple open wounds and the boy himself is not moving. 

“No, no, no,” Kai says, lifting his brother onto his lap. “Jake, Jake, open your eyes. Open them.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The two of them were supposed to graduate next year, they were supposed to go to college. They were supposed to cry when they hug their mother goodbye and have Skype calls every weekend. Jake was supposed to become a father and coach little league to his son and Kai was supposed to be the best uncle by sending the best gifts every birthday and every holiday. Kai was supposed to get a job in engineering and ask Jake for advice on how to propose to his girlfriend. They were supposed to attend their mom’s retirement party and argue about which cake flavor to get. Jake was supposed to retire from his boring desk job to go fishing on weekends at the age of sixty-seven. He was supposed to visit Kai so they could complain about how advanced technology is and Kai was supposed to tease him about getting old. Jake was supposed to die either in hospice or in a fishing accident or in the hospital surrounded by loved ones at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. Jake was not meant to die in his brother’s arms at the age of seventeen. Kai would not allow it.

Jake opens his eyes halfway and weakly puts a bloody hand onto his brother’s chest. As if that would assuage Kai’s worries. “Shhh, I’ll be fine. Go, go get Stefan or Damon.” He swallows. “They’ll fix it.”

Jake must be losing a lot of blood to trust the Salvatores, Kai thinks. “No, I can heal you. I-I can do it.” Kai tells his brother. Fat tears fall from Kai’s eyes in frustration. “Fuck, what’s the healing spell?”

“ _ Asinta Mulaf Hin- _ fuck, that’s not it. Dammit what’s the spell?” Kai looks at his brother in desperation. He tries two more spells only to realize halfway that it’s not a healing spell. “What’s the fucking spell?” He sobs.

“Katherine’s not there,” Damon says, emerging from the cave. The dark haired vampire looks empty and shocked and sad. He had waited centuries for her and now she wasn’t even there. But Kai can’t look at the vampire right now though, not when his twin’s skin looks even paler now, even more so against the blood staining him.

“Let him do it…” Jake trails off, his eyes fluttering and his hand falling from Kai’s chest. 

“I can do it Jake!” Kai yells at his twin. He won’t let the reason both of them almost died be the reason Jake survives. He can save his brother.

Jake lifts a bloody hand to Kai’s shirt and pulls him. “You can’t.”

“I  _ can _ .” Kai insists.

Jake pushes him away, albeit weakly, and turns to the vampire.

“Damon!” He calls out weakly though Damon is still able to hear it. “I’ll do a locator spell on Katherine if you give me your blood.”

“No!” Kai cries out. He can  _ fix  _ this. He just needs to remember the healing spell. What is the fucking spell?

“Deal.” The vampire says and speeds over to the Parker twins. Damon bites his wrist and places it on Jake’s mouth. The warlock swallows the blood desperately and lets the vampire blood do its work. Damon pulls his wrist away from the warlock and both him and Kai wait for Jake’s eyes to open.

When Jake’s eyes open and his wounds are sealed is when Kai can finally breathe again. He pulls his brother into a tight hug. Kai is aware he could be breaking his brother’s ribs with the strength of the hug, but he doesn’t care. Kai is also aware his brother will chew him out for this later. But he doesn’t care. 

His brother almost  _ died _ in front of him.

His arrogance and his pride almost killed his brother not just once, but twice.

It is during this hug, Kai promises himself that he will never let his family ever be harmed again.

\---

Bonnie wakes up to Ms. Cuddles looking down as if to tell her to stop letting her guard down around Kai.

“I’m getting real sick of his shit.” Bonnie growls at Ms. Cuddles and pushes herself off the ground.

She glances at the clock. It’s almost eleven thirty. It’s almost time for the reset. “Stupidity and recklessness is what got me tossed in here, I can’t afford to be overconfident.” 

She leaves Ms. Cuddles on the counter, knowing Kai couldn’t leave without the eclipse, to walk outside. It’s pitch black out so Bonnie does a little night vision spell. Bonnie’s eyes glow green as she looks for Kai in the dark. Remembering where the Armory was, she runs into the woods.

Kai ran through the forest, desperately trying to find the Armory. All the trees looked the same and the sun was setting so it was getting too dark to search practically. Still he could feel the Armory’s magic and followed it the best he could.

Bonnie could feel herself running out of magic, her night vision was faltering and she had no time to freeze Kai’s body again. Bonnie extended her hand out and a shotgun flew into her arms. She pumped the gun to reload and aimed. Her eyes followed Kai’s fleeing form and fired. Kai heard the shot and instinctively dove down. To Bonnie’s disappointment and Kai’s relief she hit a tree instead of him. Kai scrambled to his feet and kept running. Bonnie followed him and ran. She paused to reload the gun and fired again. Another miss. 

For his part, Kai was thankful for Bonnie’s stormtrooper aim. Another gunshot rang through the air but Kai kept running. His lungs burned, his muscles were sore, and he could barely see in front of him but it didn’t matter. Kai could see the hole as if the moon was casting a spotlight on it. He ran faster, only a few feet from freedom. He’s almost there.

Bonnie screamed in frustration and threw the gun on the ground. She didn’t have a lot of magic left in her but she has enough for one big spell. She narrowed her eyes at Kai and fisted her hands. She had his magic and his magic was the magic of the Gemini.

The energy in the air began to shift and the air became hotter. Bonnie stood sideways, her left in front of her right, and assumed position. She raised her left hand in a fist and from that fist a bow made of fire grew. She pulled back her right arm, an arrow was summoned and pointing at Kai. Bonnie smiled at the magic used. It wasn’t fire, not true fire but it held the same energy and properties and most importantly, it made Bonnie feel powerful. She released the arrow.

It wouldn’t kill him but it would hurt like hell.

Kai found himself in front of the hole. He took a moment to check that the Ascendant was still his pocket, a part of his mind saying this was too good to be true and he had dropped the Ascendant somewhere. To his relief the round metal device was in his hands. Before he could relax however, a burning sensation stopped him and made him stumble to his side. Kai looked down just in time to see another fire arrow rip through him and knock him to the ground. His whole body felt like it was on fire, and his vision was clouded with yellow and orange. When he fell to the ground, the Ascendant fell out of his hands and Kai watched as it fell down to the Armory. 

The fire bow and arrow vanished from Bonnie’s hands and she walked over to Kai. She crouched down so she could look him in the eyes. He was still breathing. Good. He reached over to try and telekinetically catch the Ascendant but Bonnie, misinterpreting it as an attack, grabbed his hand and dug her nails in. Kai stared back at her in fear and awe. Despite his orange and yellow clouded vision and her bloody sweatshirt, messy hair, and furious look in her eyes, Bonnie Bennett looked every inch the goddess she is.

Bonnie’s hands glowed red and Kai screamed. Maybe it was the side effect of whatever Bonnie shot him with but her siphoning felt stronger, angrier, and more painful than the arrows she struck him with. Nothing like the physical pain Kai was used to. It feels personal, like a thousand fiery hot needles entering his bones. But the siphoning itself is like a scalpel, precise and painful, extracting his magic bit by bit. Extracting his soul bit by bit. Extracting what makes him, him bit by bit. The burning feeling leaves his body cold as he can no longer feel any magic in his blood. And the pain of not feeling his own magic is more painful than anything else. Kai feels completely and utterly powerless in Bonnie’s presence. 

Bonnie flexes her hands, adjusting to the magic she absorbed. She closes her eyes and swallows down the magic, her body not used to siphoning large amounts of multiple times in one day. She swallows down the magic and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t have a lot of time to lose, it’s eleven forty and the world is due to reset in a manner of minutes. Bonnie grabs Kai by his shirt and pulls him up, mere inches from her face.

She holds her breath and all her anger with it as she steps towards Kai. “Where is the Ascendant?”

When she receives no answer she shakes him and asks again.

“Where is the Ascendant?” Bonnie growls. Kai lazily looks her in the eye and says nothing. He spits blood into her face as a response.

Bonnie slaps Kai across the face and shakes him again. “Where is it?” 

To her surprise, Kai barks out a laugh, the first feeling of strength Kai has felt since having his magic taken away. Bonnie pauses her movements, a little scared of his laughter. She’s always hated being excluded from jokes. 

“Where is it?” She screams again, shaking him harder. Kai’s laughter becomes more manic and crazed, causing a fearful Bonnie to throw him to the ground. She is quick to compose herself however and stands up. She summons a chain she left in the woods and telekinetically lifts Kai’s hysterical body up. Bonnie ties his wrists with the chain and hangs him from the branch above him.

By the time Kai has calmed down, his hands tied to a branch of a tree and his feet dangling above the ground. His arms feel numb and when he tries to kick his legs, they remain still.

“Where is it?” Bonnie repeats. He gives her no answer so she lets out a loud curse and starts patting Kai down.

“Where is it?” Bonnie says again, her voice becoming desperate and pathetic. Kai wishes he could see in the dark because this desperate and pathetic Bonnie would be such a treat after her acting so overconfident and uppity the entire time he knew her. 

Bonnie continues to run her hands all over him, trying to feel for the device she needed for so long. Tears began to pool in her eyes each time she ran her hands over Kai and didn’t feel the magical device. Bonnie even tried to ‘feel’ for the Ascendant with her siphoning but came up empty. The only magic she could feel was the little bit of magic she left inside Kai to keep him alive. She checked her watch again. Eleven fifty-five.

“Where is it Kai?” She asks again, hope leaving her body with every word.

Kai lets out a dry laugh and looks down at the witch. “I dropped it.” He says, coolly.

Bonnie freezes and looks up at him. “Where?” She demands, yanking on the chain hoping the pain will make Kai talk.

“When you shot me with the arrow,” Kai says slowly. “It fell out of my hand and down in the Armory.”

The two of them look over at the hole- just in time for the reset to happen. Bonnie runs to the dirt, clawing at the ground. It’s like a parody of when Kai destroyed the Ascendant the first time- except this time Bonnie has no hope of fixing it.

“Are you insane?” Bonnie yells, standing right back in front of him.

“No actually.” Kai says, feeling victorious.

“You idiot.” Bonnie says, horrified. 

“Well, now this time we’re both stuck in here because of you.”

“You absolute idiot!” She screams. “Now we’re both stuck here!”

Bonnie grabs Kai’s shirt and sends a bolt of electricity through him. The warlock merely laughs it off.

Kai leans as far forward as he can. “You were going to kill my family. I’d rather stay here and be miserable than let that happen.”

Bonnie cries as she sends another bolt of electricity through him.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Until finally, her tears have dried up and the morning sun rises in the sky.

Bonnie lets out a sob and leans her head against Kai’s stomach. 

“You want to be alone forever? Fine.” Bonnie asks lowly. She takes in five deep breaths and jams a knife into his stomach before calmly walking away, never looking back.

Kai watches her leave him. He takes in a deep breath, finally able to breathe. 

He can rest now.

He’s alone.

He’s bleeding from his stomach and hanging from a tree but at least he can rest now.

\---

The rush of homesickness came in the form of a potato salad. 

It’s nearing the end of Bonnie Bennett’s first month as Joshua Parker’s ward. It is an adjustment to say the least. She went from a three person family in hot, sunny Virginia to being part of a nine person family in the humid and rainy state of Oregon. Bonnie hasn’t had much time to explore the area as Joshua Parker has a strict schedule to follow but on the drive to his house and to the compound, Bonnie didn’t see much to interest her. Bonnie also hasn’t met a lot of people outside of Joshua’s family- his seven kids and wife. Joshua told her she would start school soon, it was simply a matter of determining her level of magical knowledge that needed to be sorted out. Whatever the requirements, Bonnie hoped it would be over soon so she could start classes. Bonnie is a social butterfly, she needs to socialize to survive.

Luckily, Joshua’s wife, Melinda if Bonnie remembers correctly, is hosting a coven get-together. It’s a backyard barbeque, nothing as extravagant as Bonnie thought a witch party should be. She had hoped that being in a proper coven there would be floating candles and invisible servants with extravagant desserts and witches in luxurious dress robes. Witches from all walks of life would be in attendance, showing off their magic. 

Instead Bonnie watched as Joshua manned the grill with an apron with a pun written across the front and told jokes to his friends. Melinda played hostess with a too big smile on her face and a dress Bonnie could only describe as ‘textile waste.’ The guests were Geminis from the Portland area. Their seven kids were scattered across the yard, the kids playing on the swing set and the teenagers chatting amongst themselves. At least Bonnie didn’t look out of place with her long green skirt and loose black tank top. The other women were all wearing outfits that wouldn’t look out of place in a GAP catalog.

Bonnie is standing in line for the buffett the Parkers prepared. No invisible servants serving pastel desserts a mile high or grilled unicorn dipped in fairy dust, just the usual barbeque food set up on a plastic folding table. To the Parkers’ credit, the food did smell good despite the burn marks on some of the ribs. Unfortunately, Bonnie was on a vegetarian diet so she was forced to eat their limited vegetarian options. She picked up the plastic serving spoon and loaded salad onto her plate.

“Bonnie!” A voice calls out from behind the witch. Bonnie turns around to see the oldest Parker child, Jo, running towards her. Due to their close ages, the girls became friends quickly. Though, Bonnie didn’t plan on getting close to the girl. She didn’t even plan on staying with the Parkers for long, once her mom realized how she overreacted, Bonnie would be back on a plane to Mystic Falls in no time.

But Jo was an alright girl and Bonnie didn’t mind being her friend. Under different circumstances, Jo was the kind of girl Bonnie would have talked to in class but not in the hallways. The kind of girl Bonnie would vote for student body president but not take the time to get to know outside of school. The kind of girl Bonnie would tell she elected her for prom queen when in reality, Bonnie would choose a fellow cheerleader. But, as it is, Jo Parker is the only girl her age in the Parker household and Bonnie should be lucky to call her a friend. Better Jo than one of the younger kids.

Bonnie faces Jo with a smile. “Hey Jo!”

“I’ve got some friends I want to introduce you to. I know you must be dying surrounded by my siblings everyday.” Jo smiles brightly.

“You read my mind.” Bonnie jokes.

“Oh did you try the potato salad? I helped my mom make it.” Without waiting for Bonnie to answer, Jo puts a handful of potato salad on her plate and leads Bonnie out of the line and to her friends. Bonnie only half-heartedly commits their names to memory, the knowledge that she will not stay for long at the forefront of her mind. 

Instead of engaging in their conversation, Bonnie pushes the potato salad around her paper plate. Her mom was a fairly decent chef and would always bring a bowl of potato salad to the backyard barbeques her coworkers invited her to. Sheila would joke that it was ‘so we wouldn’t have to eat Karen’s nasty potato salad.’ Abby and Bonnie would hide their laughs behind their hands when they saw Dr. Karen Smith come in with her potato salad. If Abby and Sheila were here, they would laugh with Bonnie at the Parkers’ potato salad. 

The dish had raisins in it! 

Raisins! 

The fact that Jo was proud of the fact she and her mom made it together was also icing on the cake. Bonnie wondered if she could get some time to call her mom this week and ask for the recipe. Then she would show the Parkers a potato salad to be proud of.

Bonnie’s stomach sank.

She had to  _ call _ home and ask for a recipe from her  _ mom _ over the  _ phone _ . And that was if she was lucky enough to have her mom  _ answer  _ the phone. It was nearing first semester midterms at Whitmore so her mom would be busy preparing for that. It was also the time of year the professors would be getting together to make up the exams together. This was the time of year the Bennett family would go to the Whitmore professors’ homes. Bonnie should be with them this time of year. Bonnie was missing Dr. Karen Smith’s awful potato salad and her mom’s great potato salad. 

Maybe Abby would pick up. Her older sister always complained that going to the professor group dinners made it impossible to get any studying done so she was probably home. The two girls had never been close but Bonnie suddenly found herself longing to hear her sister’s voice. Bonnie put her fork down, her appetite suddenly lost. Heck, at this point she even wanted to hear her sister’s trashy music play. Abby was really into rock music, all her pajamas were band tees she got at concerts. Bonnie doubted anyone at the party knew any of the music drilled into Bonnie’s head from years of sharing a wall with her sister. And even if anyone did know Pearl Jam and Nirvana, they definitely didn’t have Abby’s voice which made listening to the music  _ somewhat _ bearable. 

Bonnie stared at the plate of potato salad. She had a strong desire for her mom’s cooking. She wanted her mom’s potato salad in the blue bowl Sheila bought from the neighborhood yard sale. She wanted her mom’s sweet potato pie with burnt edges because Sheila left it in the oven a little too long because she wanted to make sure it was cooked all the way. She wanted collard greens served on Abby’s favorite yellow, patterned plate. She wanted to fight her sister over the last piece of cornbread and measure the two pieces so she was sure it was split evenly because ‘I know you gave yourself the biggest piece Abigail Wilhemina Bennett!’ Bonnie held her stomach tightly.

“Bonnie?” Jo’s voice shaking her out of her thoughts. Bonnie looked up to see the table was empty except for herself and Jo, who was standing up with a concerned look on her face.

Bonnie blinks and plasters a smile onto her face. “Yeah, sorry, I was off in la la land. What’s going on?”

Jo smiles, relieved. “We’re going to play volleyball, you wanna come?”

“Sure!” Bonnie says perkily, pushing away her plate. Jo holds out her hand to help Bonnie up.

Bonnie looks at the hand Jo holds out and can practically see the magic swirling off her skin. In addition to good food, Bonnie misses magic. It’s been a month since she felt any magic in her veins. Her mom and sister were careful not to accidentally give her any before sending her to the Parkers and the Parkers took extra precautions to not let any magic reach Bonnie. Her hunger for food is replaced with hunger for power. She accepts Jo’s hand with a smile.

Jo leads Bonnie through the crowds of people. Bonnie has almost forgotten what it feels like to be touched by another person. None of the Parkers told Bonnie to wear gloves to the party so she decided to forgo the little accessory for the day. Bonnie grips her hand tighter around Jo. Then after enjoying the feeling of skin against skin, she begins to gently siphon the girl’s magic. Bonnie is desperate, not reckless. Holding hands is a rare treat for Bonnie, and she’d rather not ruin all future chances of holding hands again. She siphons it painlessly so Jo has no reason to let go. But Jo notices anyway.

“What are you doing?” She asks, seeing the red glow of Bonnie’s magic. 

Bonnie lets go of Jo’s hand. 

“Nothing.” She says a little too quickly to be innocent. Bonnie looks around. There’s no one really around to see what she just did. The two girls are directly in between the crowd of partygoers and the teams for volleyball, both groups blissfully unaware of the events transpiring.

“I have to tell my dad.” Jo says, in a regretful, fearful voice. Bonnie can tell Jo hates the idea of snitching.

Bonnie grabs Jo’s arm, digging her fingers into the girl’s skin. 

“Please don’t.” Her words are desperate but her actions are threatening. Bonnie’s fingers dig in deeper as she begins to siphon her again. Jo starts to tear up from the pain.

“Bonnie let go of me!” Jo says but when Bonnie makes no move to let her go, Jo yells out, “ _ Vodux _ !”

Bonnie goes flying away from the girl and Jo takes the opportunity to run.

“I’m sorry Jo!” Bonnie screams but the older girl runs away in tears anyway. Bonnie watches as Jo literally bumps into her father. The man’s smile falls when he gets a look at his eldest daughter. Between Jo clutching her own hand in tears and Bonnie’s panicked expression, it’s easy for Joshua to put the pieces together.

He says nothing to Bonnie, sending a cold look in her direction as he takes his daughter inside. Bonnie joins the rest of the party to avoid the rest of the Parkers, jumping at every touch and sound. Her eyes spent the rest of the party searching for Joshua and slipping into crowds when she does spot him. She hasn’t been with the Gemini for long but she is sure messing with the coven leader’s daughter- intentionally or not- has consequences. Throughout her meal, throughout tense introductions, and throughout every single good-bye, Bonnie is tense and does not let her guard down once.

When the party ends, it is just Bonnie and the Parkers left.

Head held high, Bonnie accepts whatever punishment Joshua has in store for her. Joshua takes Bonnie down to the basement. It’s nothing frightening or even remarkable. An unfinished basement filled with objects both magical and mundane yet still clean and organized. There is a couch in the corner and some cabinets full of magical objects and board games along the wall as well. Bonnie follows the man deeper into the basement, which is a lot bigger than she thought it would be. Joshua stops in front of a cabinet and pulls out a key. He inserts the key into the basement door and the whole world changes. Or at least, just the Parkers’ basement. 

Bonnie’s stomach sinks.

The Geminis were known for their reality warping magic.

The basement has shrunk to a quarter of its size and changed its interior entirely. It resembles what Bonnie thinks an asylum looks like. The basement’s concrete walls are replaced with white padded ones, like the kind Bonnie saw in gym class. The concrete floors that were covered with warm colored rugs are now replaced with cold white tiles. The room is empty as Bonnie can see no bed, no windows, and no toilet. The only thing in the room are a pair of handcuffs that are shaped like bullets connected to the ground.

Bonnie’s body goes cold.

Joshua snaps his fingers and before Bonnie can face him, she has been moved from standing at Joshua’s side to kneeling on the middle of the floor. Her hands are completely encased in the bullet shaped metal cuffs. The room becomes cold, too cold for Bonnie and she yanks on the metal, tries to pull herself away to no avail. To Joshua, she looks like a bird trapped in a cage.

“You are to stay here for two days,” Joshua tells her as he looks down at her. His eyes are so hard, Bonnie stops struggling against the chains. She cowers under his gaze. 

“I will have someone come down to hand feed you every meal and give you a bucket to relieve yourself.” Joshua continues, his words cold and angry. “If you ever make another mistake like that again, you will be sent here for another two days.”

The first meal she is given in the basement is potato salad. Melinda refused to leave until she ate every single bite.

Including the raisins.

When Bonnie’s two day punishment ends, she makes the decision to never be alone again.

\---

Kai wakes up on the cold floor of the forest when the morning sun. Peeling a leaf off his face, he looks at the branch above him where he was hung. Another day must have passed while he was unconsciously hanging from the branch and the chain he was strung up with must have gone back to its original location. Kai stands up, feeling light headed from the blood loss, and walks back to town rubbing his wrists. He stumbles into the grocery store and tears open a bag of raisins, emptying the bag into his hungry mouth.

The boy was left hanging and bleeding for over twenty-four hours, he had no time to politely eat.

Bonnie finds him on the floor of the grocery store chugging a bottle of water while holding the stab wound she gave him.

“You look like shit,” She says dryly, opening the freezer door across from him. It was true. She knew that leaving him hanging with multiple open wounds was probably bad for him and the boy needed to be punished but he looked a lot worse than she thought he would be. Her health was always restored after every reset or resurrection so looking at someone else’s poor health was morbidly fascinating. Kai’s skin was pale and his eyes were haggard. His clothes were torn and covered in dry blood, which only made the boy look paler. In addition to his paleness, his cheeks looked a little hollow. 

Kai finishes the bottle and crunches it under his hand. “I can’t take all the credit. You’re the one who stabbed me and left me to hang for a day.”

Bonnie grabs bottles from the freezer and stuffs it in her bag. Her teddy bear stares back at Kai uncomfortably. “You stab me, I stab you, round and round the carousel goes.” She tells him uncaringly.

“Why are you packing?”

“I’m leaving. Since I’m stuck here, I’m not getting stuck in this town.”

Kai tilts his head in confusion. He was well aware he doomed them both but he was not expecting Bonnie to give up that easily. “Giving up already? Why can’t you just go get the Ascendant where you found it?”

Bonnie slams the freezer door shut and for the first time that day she raises her voice. “Because it’s not that easy, asshole!”

Kai was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I found it over ten years ago while I was blackout drunk for a week.” Bonnie says facing him.

“How?”

“Remember how I said the Armory must have moved around and that’s how it got underground? The Ascendant does the same thing- it moves around and only when you stop looking for it can it be found. Using a tracking spell on it when it’s not on either of us is pointless because it won’t show up. It’s always moving.”

It was a lot of information to take in and once. Kai held his head. “That is horribly convoluted.”

“Well it was your asshole coven that made it up.” Bonnie mumbles.

“So how did you find it the first time?”

“Like I said, I drank myself to death for a week straight and when I was sober I found it in my hand.”

“So we drink while we try not to look for it.” Kai thinks back to the tracking spell he did when they first met. “We just wander around Portland until it appears in our hands.”

Bonnie sighs and runs a hand over her face. “Again, not easy. Unlike the Armory, the Ascendant is a lot smaller and can travel further from its original location than the Armory can. It could be in the mountains of Tibet for all we know. Hell, it could even be beneath our feet.”

“Well,” Kai decides. “If it’s going to be near impossible, I’d better get comfortable here.”

Bonnie watches Kai reach behind him to grab another bottled water. “What are you talking about?”

“You said it yourself. We’re not going to find it anytime soon, if at all, so I’m going to enjoy my time however I’d like.” Obviously Kai was not happy to be stuck in the Prison World, but if it was his life in exchange for his family’s lives, he will take it. He foiled Bonnie’s plans and he wasn’t going to let himself be manipulated into joining another one. He was done with her.

“You’re just going to give up? Are you serious?” Bonnie’s mouth hung open. She thought she could guilt him into helping her again. She failed at seducing him, she failed at being honest with him, she failed at using his family against him. Kai was not falling for a single one of her tricks and Bonnie felt herself panic.

“Yep.” Kai says, popping the ‘p.’ He winces, pushing himself off the ground and walks out of the refrigerated aisle with Bonnie staring after him, her jaw hanging. Then she collects herself. 

“You’re bluffing.” She says with her arms crossed.

“I’m not,” Kai says, not facing her. “And if you were serious about keeping an eye on my ass, you’re going to stick around and watch as I do nothing.”

He’s calling her bluff, Bonnie realizes. 

‘Well screw him.’ Bonnie thinks. He broke their deal first so if he’s trying to insult whatever honor he thinks she has, Bonnie will not give him the satisfaction. She pushes past him, not caring that she knocked him into a chip stand.

“Good luck without me!” Bonnie calls out, not looking back at him. “Don’t let the loneliness kill you!”

Then, like a child, Bonnie stomps her foot cracking the grocery store in half and causing the refrigerated section of the store to sink down into the earth. Kai barely manages to avoid joining the ice cream and frozen dinners by running outside.

When he gets there, Kai watches as Bonnie takes Damon’s car and drives away. He walks back to the Salvatore Boarding house with his ears filled with nothing but silence.

When Kai wakes up the next day, the grocery store is whole and the car is back in front of the boarding house as if it never left.

Kai wonders if Bonnie truly left.

Kai wonders if he has damned himself to loneliness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonnie: *threatens to kill his family, stabs him multiple times, hangs him from a tree for over 24 hrs, deprives him of food and water, says he looks like shit*  
> Kai: I’m not letting you out of here.  
> Bonnie: *Surprised Pikachu face*
> 
> Explanation of mind control: The Bennetts have mind control/puppet mastery because I was thinking where vampires could have gotten their compulsion powers from. Then I rewatched ATLA and was like… blood bending. A commenter said that the Bennetts were natural talent and I misinterpreted that to mean control over nature so now that’s part of their skillset since they are the oldest witch line in the world (as far as I know) and nature was super valuable back in the olden days. And you could make the case for a lot of magic being nature related like telekinesis is air. Bennett mind control is more visually similar to blood bending in ATLA (but smoother) or puppet mastery in X-Men: Logan, so they have to move around to get someone to do what they want and the person knows they are being controlled. This is more useful than vampire compulsion in that witches wouldn’t need eye contact and vampires have that plant that’s their weakness whereas witches are only limited to the witch’s concentration because they are focusing on the person’s blood.
> 
> The fire arrow was based on ‘The Discovery of Witches’ a show I have yet to watch. I feel like it was wasted in this chapter since Kai was barely hurt by it so it should come up again with a lot of damage. 
> 
> Also, if you’re mad at Kai for his actions, know he will be suffering in either the next chapter or the chapter after that so he can get some sympathy points. The only reason his flashbacks have not been in the spotlight is because I would have to know TVD and I don’t even have the energy to look at the wiki. But now we are in familiar territory so let the Kai suffering begin!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment down below!


	6. My Loneliness is Killing Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai’s drink of choice is alcohol.  
> Bonnie’s drink of choice is bleach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pulled out my diary entries from the beginning of quarantine for this one so please be nice.
> 
> Trigger warning: Suicidal thoughts and actions, depression, unhealthy coping mechanisms, isolation, sexual fantasy
> 
> 33 pages. I'm going to go take a nap.

Kai lasts two months alone with his thoughts.

And he is fucking exhausted.

Depression weighs him down like a stone in the water. There was a time when Kai was fine, maybe not  _ fine _ but his depression was manageable. Then he died and something about it made it worse. Maybe it was because no matter how loud he screamed, he was ignored. Maybe it was because he saw that his family was suffering and it was all his fault. Maybe it was because he saw people grow and change and do everything he couldn’t. When Jake brought him back from the dead, Kai could still feel his depression as a part of him but he could handle it. He had classes and his family and his friends to distract him. It wasn’t perfect but Kai could handle it.

Isolation is different from death. When Kai was dead at least he could follow his friends and family around and watch life go on. Watch a new episode every week and watch his brother’s games for fun. In the Prison World however, nothing changed. It was the same show and same empty streets, everyday, like clockwork. There was no one around to follow and make snarky remarks about. There was no one to watch and nowhere to go. There was nothing to distract him from his own thoughts. He is alone.

Kai thought the world moving on without him was hell. No, hell was being completely and utterly alone in a world where nothing changed. 

If Kai is lucky, there will be days he doesn’t feel a single thing. He won’t get out of bed, he won’t eat, he won’t shower, he won’t sleep, he won’t take care of himself. If he does muster up the energy to roll out of bed, he can only find it in himself to stare blankly at the television screen. It plays the same episode as the day before and the day before that. But it doesn’t matter if it was the same episode every day or a different one, Kai finds himself numb to the screen regardless.

But most days Kai’s mind is thinking. Thoughts run through his head and refuse to stop.

Kai thinks of his family and what they must be doing right now. Were they all moving on to the next chapter in their lives? Kai thinks of how his family and friends must have moved on by now, either because loss hurts less the second time around or because they are distracted by yet another Mystic Falls problem. Everyone probably found a replacement for him too. Jake was the obvious first pick as the stronger of the two. Kai was well aware of his status as the spare, or freebie, in the eyes of their friends. But Jake needed someone there to balance him out, put of the fires he would start. Jo could have called anyone of the Parker cousins, or even another Gemini member to take his spot. Kai wonders what the other Parker twins, his cousins Luke and Olivia, would be up to. Kai hasn’t seen them in almost a decade but he’s sure with their experience they’d be perfect candidates to replace him and save Mystic Falls. 

No. 

Kai can’t think like that.

It’s not his family’s fault if they replace him. This is his family for God’s sake. They gave him everything and would do anything for him. They have done  _ everything _ for him. His mother raised him and his brother, alone without a husband or family to support her. His cousins sent spellbooks and magical objects to him when he asked. His brother  _ resurrected _ him for Pete’s sake. His grandfather was the one that gave his brother the information to resurrect him. What was he doing complaining about them? They have given him everything. Kai will not disrespect them like this. They were probably doing everything they could to get him back but he has no doubt that they will be side tracked by yet another world-ending problem in Mystic Falls. Kai grew up in that town so he will defend it until his dying breath (again) but he wishes it would just have one boring week for once. It’s exhausting. But it’s fine, Kai is used to being in second place. He understands it. There are more important things than him. He needs to stop being so selfish and wait for his friends to save Mystic Falls.

When these thoughts enter Kai’s mind, he grabs a bottle and pushes those thoughts away.

Kai is reminded of that scene in the Incredibles where Mr. Incredible rants about the city constantly needing saving. As a child he thought the scene was an odd choice for an introduction but now Kai understands. Why doesn’t Mystic Falls save itself for once? Why must all its troubles extend to him and his family and friends? But, like Mr. Incredible after his forced retirement, Kai has been given a lot of time to reflect and miss how his life used to be. Kai had something to do, something useful to do, something to feel good about, feel satisfied with. Kai saved lives and practiced magic, now he trapped himself in a never ending, static hell.

Sometimes, and these may be the worst nights, Kai will dream. He will dream that his reality was a nightmare and he was safe at home. He would wake up and go downstairs where everything would be normal. His mom would be in the kitchen eating cereal and half paying attention to a crazy story Jake will tell about the baseball team. He will see his brother coming down the stairs and fix him a bowl of cereal so Kai can listen to his story too. Jake makes the perfect bowl of cereal with the cereal to milk ratio just right. Kai and his mom will exchange looks at some of the wilder parts of the story but continue to listen regardless. Afterwards Jeremy will come over and the twins will ride with him to the lake. The windows will be down the entire time so Kai can breathe in the summer air and feel the sun rays on his skin. All their friends will be there and they will all swim and jump around the lake. He will race Matt to the other side, play chicken with Tyler, lay on his back and float while talking to Caroline, share a joint with Jeremy, and jump off the rope swing and into the water. The only thing people will worry about is stepping on glass and leaving behind trash. Everyone will have fun even when it starts to rain. Kai misses the rain so feeling it wash down on him in the water will feel like rebirth. He will feel happy enough to smile again so he will.

Then Kai wakes up in his cold bed.

When he wakes up, his good dream turns into a nightmare. Everything he wants, everything he longs for, is an illusion and disappears like smoke in front of him.

Once again, he is alone.

Alcohol is his only friend these days.

It helps  _ repress _ ,  _ repress _ ,  _ repress _ .

The best part about living in an eternal reset is that no matter how much you drink, your bottle will never empty. 

Sometimes though, the bottle will empty for a day and more thoughts will enter Kai’s mind.

Would it be better if he died? He doesn’t want to die but sometimes, when he has the energy to bathe, he has the desire to see his own blood swirling down the shower drain. He hangs his head and wonders what it would be like to die from hanging. (Would his neck snap right away or would he stay alive a little longer and suffocate?) Kai doesn’t let himself take baths anymore because he let his head fall under the water and stayed there until his lungs screamed and his vision grew dark. He let his skin prune and pale and saw how easy it would be to cut open the soft tissue. Kai didn’t want to die but he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts anymore.

When Kai feels particularly lonely, he finds himself missing the other half of the population. How must Bonnie have felt when she was first left here. What did she do for entertainment? Did she go mad twice over with loneliness? Did she discover her immortality in an attempt to leave the Prison World? Bonnie was so cheery and eager to see other people when she was tied down in that video rental store. She was chatty and touch starved, both of which Kai indulged her in. He liked having someone to talk to and like feeling her hand on his chest. She made him feel like he was special and strong. He liked her smile and that dared to make spells of her own creation. Bonnie is powerful even after more than two decades of not practicing magic. Kai had met the Originals, the older witches, and even older vampires, yet none compared to her. And though he would never dare to say it aloud, Kai misses her violence. It was the first thing that attracted him to her. Kai burnt down Mystic Falls in an attempt to feel what she felt that day, in an attempt to feel closer to her, in an attempt to feel  _ something _ but the only feeling he could conjure was yearning for her. He misses  _ her _ . 

A week passed since Bonnie left him to hang in the woods and since she destroyed that grocery store before Kai really started to miss her. Or rather, Kai missed having company around. 

He walked the streets calling her name, hoping to come to see a glimpse of her or hear something that would let him know she was still there. Something that would let him know he wasn’t alone. He would even be willing to come to a truce with her- for a day at least- so he wouldn’t be alone.

But he was alone. 

Bonnie had left him.

(Though Kai had to wonder if he was the first one to leave.)

(Regardless, Kai cried as he drank at the knowledge that he was alone.)

Sometimes, when Kai is feeling particularly lonely and maybe a little drunk, he will think of when he found Bonnie and Damon together. The rage he felt when he saw the way her body moved as rhythmically on Damon as she moved on the dance floor. How Bonnie’s glittering short dress riding up on her thighs and showing a glimpse of her sheer black underwear. Kai wished he took her right then and there. 

Kai will think of how he should have thrown the damned vampire away and claimed Bonnie right then and there. He wouldn’t have even taken her dress off or waited for Damon to leave. He would just push Bonnie onto the mattress and tore her underwear before sinking his length into her. Bonnie wouldn’t have stopped him either. She would let out a teasing comment but Kai would cut her off with a deep thrust. She would claw at the sheets and her eyes would roll to the back of her head. Kai would bury his face into her neck, marking her as his for Damon and all the world to see. He would bite her and she would enjoy the pain he gifted her. The power of Kai’s thrusts would make it impossible for Bonnie to keep herself up so she would fall face first into the sheets as Kai holds her up by her hips.

Kai’s hands would leave bruises on her flawless skin, gripping her hips so tight. He’d smack her ass over and over again as punishment for letting herself be used by Damon. He’d pull her body close to his to rip the front of Bonnie’s dress and grab the breasts he had caught glimpses of. She never wore a bra which would provide no barrier for him to tease her breasts. He’d roll and punch her nipples between his fingers, letting her fill the air with her screams of pleasure. He’d feel her tighten around him and pull out before she had the chance to cum. Bonnie would let out a delicious whine at her stolen orgasm but Kai would shut her up right away. He’d flip her over on her back so he could see the look on her face when she came. Bonnie would look up at him and know Kai was the one giving her pleasure.  _ Him _ , no one else. She wouldn’t imagine anyone else but him. His hand would leave her breast, leave her nipples aroused and erect, to play with the pearl between her legs. Kai would be relentless circling and rubbing her clit. He’d pound her harder and she’ll scream louder. He bets that Bonnie wouldn’t resist digging her nails into his back either, drawing possesive red lines all over him. Her legs would tighten around him, telling him to go faster while her eyes would silently beg him to let her cum. And he’ll let her. Her body will shake and tremble at the assault, the overwhelming euphoria. Seeing her in this way will trigger his orgasm and he’ll bury himself deep inside of her. Her legs will tighten around him, refusing to let go of him, while Bonnie gives him a kiss. One hand would tug at his hair and her teeth would nip at his lips but the other hand will gently hold his cheek as her soft lips kiss him. Kai would return the kiss, his hand holding the back of her head to keep the kiss going for as long as possible. Her kiss would be as sweet as sin and Kai would hold Bonnie closer for more.

(Sometimes afterwards, he would wrap his hands around her throat and watch as her eyes filled with panic, filled with terror, filled with pain. He would watch Bonnie Bennett die at his own hand.)

Then guilt and shame would fill his body. Kai would sprint to the shower after he finishes out the thoughts that plague him. He would turn on the icy cold shower and let the uncomfortable wave fall over his body. The water washes away all evidence of his deed while Kai forces her out of his thoughts. Not only did he think of her as his sexual object to own and possess and unleash his animalistic urges onto (in front of Damon of all people) (and sometimes even his own murderous urges) but this was  _ Bonnie Bennett _ . The girl who stabbed him in the back, the girl who hunted Kai down, the girl who used him as her own personal magic battery, the girl who hung him in the woods, the girl who caused his mother so much pain, the girl who wishes to see his entire family dead, the girl who killed her own family and his grandmother, the girl who sliced open his mom’s body to steal her spleen. The girl who will most likely kill him and his mother and brother after she kills his grandfather. 

Kai has watched revenge films a few times and the endings always had the same lesson- end the bloodline. End the bloodline and no one will come back for their revenge. 

(Obviously the lesson at the end of those movies was that revenge is not the answer as it causes an endless cycle of violence but Kai doesn’t think Bonnie is the kind of person who would just let them go. Plus, as the coven leader Joshua’s death would carry a significant weight that would likely result in Bonnie killing every single witch who goes after her. Kai can’t have any more blood on his hands.)

When pushing her out of his head doesn’t work, Kai resorts to his other measures.

_ Repress, repress, repress. _

When he no longer thinks of his family or Bonnie, he is not left with much else to think about.

Completely and utterly alone with his own thoughts.

His own, dangerous, poisonous thoughts.

\---

Klaus Mikealson was an absolute bastard in all senses of the word. The Original hybrid had come to Mystic Falls in search of none other than Miss Elena Gilbert. He needed to complete a ritual of some kind and needed doppelganger blood to do so. Kai didn’t get all the details cause he was at a mathletes meeting but he understood enough. New big bad guy comes to town, wants Elena’s delicious magical doppelganger blood, tries to take over the world. It was the basic plot of every villain in the last twenty years.

But Kai’s film knowledge doesn’t contribute anything in the battle against Klaus Mikealson. In fact, he doesn’t last very long in the battle against Klaus Mikealson. In fact, despite all the planning he did with the Salvatores to take down Klaus, the hybrid kills Kai first. To get Elena to do his bidding, Klaus told her that if she wasn’t going to do what he wanted he would kill every single one of her friends until she went with him. Kai had the unfortunate luck of being the one Klaus saw first when he made this threat.

Kai thought that as a member of a supernatural fighting squad and a semi-member of a major American coven he would die an interesting and glorious death. An exploding skull during a battle with another witch, his brain squeezed out of his head while on the run from a mad doctor, his blood poisoned against him, letting his vampire friends drink him dry to they may live to see another day, maybe an ornamental knife to the heart as part of a ritual in the place of his brother. Kai always saw himself dying in some grandiose way, not as a pawn in Elena’s life.

But regardless of how he died, Kai still died.

Death is like this: 

A moment of pain, then silence.

There was no white light, no grandmother to greet him at the end of the tunnel, no pearly gates. 

Just silence.

Kai ‘wakes up’ next to his corpse, pale bent out of shape, and the thunder and lightning outside doing nothing to erase his horror. He screams at the sight of his dead body and scrambles away from it. Though it’s a terrifying sight, Kai can’t tear his eyes away. The unnatural angle of his neck, the emptiness of his eyes, his already pale skin turned alabaster. He can’t believe how pale his skin has gotten, how long has his body been lying here?

No, Jake would have gotten home by now. He would have seen Kai’s body lying on the floor like a broken doll. He would have cried for his twin and refused to leave. Jake wouldn’t let Kai’s body just stay in their childhood home without a proper good-bye. The fact that Kai’s corpse is still here means that Jake never came home. It could mean that Klaus could have found Jake to be next in line to his plot against Elena.

Kai runs out of the room, desperately trying to find Jake or even just his friends. He didn’t know if there was anything he could do to save them or if they were even still alive but he just needed to see them. Kai ran throughout the town checking the school, the Salvatore house, and then the forest. 

It’s in the forest that Kai finds his brother and their friends around Klaus Mikealson as if they had a chance at stopping the Original hybrid. Rain beats down on the living, not deterring Klaus Mikealson at all who walks towards Mystic Falls residence with flashing eyes. 

Matt is the first to fall, then Stefan, then Tyler, then Jake. When Jake falls, Kai stops paying attention to the battle and runs to his brother’s side. Jake is unconscious from being thrown against a tree with all of Klaus’s strength. 

“Jake,” Kai says, kneeling beside his brother’s body. “Jake, Jake, wake up. Jake you need to wake up right now. You need to wake up and fight this bastard. You need to fight him, then defeat him, then go home and bury me, okay? You need to wake up.”

But Kai’s words fall on deaf ears. Kai slaps his brother in the hopes that he is solid enough to awake him but instead of slapping his brother, Kai enters Jake.

Kai- or is it Jake?- wakes up with a start. Kai feels the earth beneath him and the rain beating on top of the body he possesses. Him and Jake were identical but his body feels nothing like Jake’s body. It’s a strange feeling but one Kai doesn’t have time to think of right now. Elena is being pulled away by Klaus and no one is able to help her. From the corner of his eye, Kai can see Caroline and Damon have joined the fallen. 

Kai stands up with Jake’s shaky legs and screams at the Original. 

“Hey!”

Klaus looks to see the Parker witch leaning against a tree for support and smirks, knowing Jake is a waste of time. The ritual must be completed soon and he is not delaying it by fighting a witch who can hardly stand. He pulls Elena away until Jake screams again. This time, the scream has enough force to knock Klaus to the ground. Elena turns to see Jake is standing on his two feet and his eyes are glowing blue.

Kai is not sure what power Jake possessed but he wasn’t going to question it. He just wanted to stop Klaus from completing that damned ritual. Kai just hoped Jake had enough power to do this particular spell. Klaus stood up and made his way to Jake’s possessed body. The two locked eye contact and Kai raised his hands. The rain stopped in its tracks. 

Klaus looked around with wide eyes. He had never encountered this kind of magic before. But it didn’t matter- Klaus already killed his brother, it wouldn’t be any more difficult to kill him too. Some parlor trick won’t stop him. Klaus ran to the Parker warlocks, only to be stopped by all the water in the air moving to trap him. The water surrounds the Original’s body like a straight jacket. His body is lifted off the ground as Jake walks towards him. Klaus tries to move but Jake sends an aneurysm to distract the hybrid. Klaus screamed in pain while Elena ran out of the fire zone and to one of her friends. His body trapped, his mind aflame, and hovering a couple feet above ground leaves Klaus helpless. He screams again in pain.

The screams wake the remaining members of the Mystic Falls Gang who watch as Jake holds the Original hybrid in a straitjacket made of rain. 

Blood begins to fall from Jake’s- or is it Kai’s?- eyes and nose as the spell continues. Whatever magic he is using feels like ice running through his veins. Kai doesn’t want to keep going but he knows that if he stops, Klaus will not hesitate to kill his brother. Kai always imagined him and his brother would die not too far apart from each other but not like this, never like this. Not only that, but that bastard killed him. Kai wanted Klaus to pay.

Kai rarely let himself get angry but for Klaus Mikealson, he would unleash all his pain and frustration. He lets out a scream.

Kai releases Klaus’s body from his watery confines to drop him to the ground. Despite not using his body for only a few minutes, Klaus could barely muster the energy to stand up. But to be extra sure, Kai freezes the hybrid’s hands and feet to the earth. The remaining water retreats and freezes. Klaus Mikealson watches as numerous icicles stare at him, ready to strike. Even if this doesn’t kill him, it will hurt. The sight of the great and mighty Original Hybrid makes Kai smile. The beast who lorded over everyone was now chained to the earth by the very witch he killed. Kai raises his hands ready to strike when his wrist is stopped. Kai turns to see the older Mikealson grabbing his wrist. Elijah looks down at Kai’s bleeding face and slowly shakes his head. 

“Don’t you dare harm my brother. I’ll deal with him myself.” He tells the warlock and before Kai can respond with Jake’s voice Ellijah runs to his brother. In his shock, Kai loses concentration and the icy blades melt in the air and rain falls once more on the town. This is apparently enough to stop Kai’s possession of his brother and return him to ghost form. Jake falls to the ground once more. 

Elijah runs in front of his brother to hold him up. Klaus accepts his brother’s hand only to find Elijah’s fist in his chest. Klaus chokes, trying to find the words to escape his brother. Kai can’t hear what the two are saying but in a flash, the two are gone. Hopefully, far, far away from Mystic Falls.

Jake wakes up with a start and Kai lets out a sigh of relief. Jake coughs and tries to catch his breath. Elena and Matt run to their friend, helping him sit up.

“Jake, are you alright?” Matt asks.

Jake groans for air. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be fine. What happened? Where did Klaus go?”

“You don’t remember?” Elena asks, patting his back. Jake shakes his head and everyone starts to surround the warlock. “You almost defeated him. I think if Elijah hadn’t intervened, you could have killed him once and for all.”

The news surprises Jake. “I did that? Are you sure?” 

Everyone nods.

“Kai must have helped, where is he?” Jake looks around and when he locks eyes with his brother- “Somebody call Kai, he must have done a spell or something to superpower me.”

It’s then that Kai realizes, that even among the supernatural-

No one can see him.

\---

Bonnie gasped for air. 

Once oxygen entered her lungs, Bonnie’s head began to pound and every movement increased the pressure throbbing in her head. Her mind was swimming and every thought felt like it was going too fast and too slow at the same time. Bonnie barely felt able to sit up so she waited for the floor to stop moving for just one minute. A hand to her head helped balance her as she opened her eyes to the too bright fluorescents of the kitchen. Her throat felt like hell too, raw and dry and scratchy so she stood up on shaky legs to look for a glass of water.

She drank a gallon of drain cleaner earlier, just so she could feel  _ something _ . Kai was right when he gave her that verbal assessment when they met. He  _ was _ a shiny new toy for her to play with. She didn’t miss him exactly, but Kai did make her feel… things.

It wasn’t that she missed touching  _ Kai _ per say, but Bonnie did miss the simple pleasure of having another person around. 

Kai was much more vocal than Ms. Cuddles and Bonnie enjoyed their little verbal sparring matches. She enjoyed putting her hands on him, feeling his smooth skin and toned arms and big hands. Bonnie hadn’t touched another human in almost twenty years so to touch Kai… it sent a thrill through her even without the added pleasure of siphoning him. But when she did siphon him? Oh that was a magic she thought she’d never get to see again. The way it filled her veins. It was a feeling of power she thought she would never have again. But all good things must come to an end and Bonnie was once again reminded that the Geminis were all the same. Assholes who put too much emphasis on their coven. Bonnie wished she could be surprised because the emotion was a rare occurrence but she was just disappointed. Disappointed in herself that is. She never learned her lessons it would seem.

Which brings her to this. Suicide was a Prison World passtime of Bonnie’s and one she engaged in semi-regularly. It wasn’t that she was suicidal- which she would admit that she could be if death had any actual meaning in the Prison World- it was just that Bonnie wanted to feel something other than longing for Kai. If she felt an unwanted emotion- or was just curious or genuinely suicidal that day- Bonnie would simply find a way to kill herself so she wouldn’t have to deal with that for a while. 

When she first arrived in the Prison World, Bonnie thought she was tough enough to endure the pain of loneliness and survival. That’s something she was raised to believe in after all- Bonnie Bennett is tough, Bonnie Bennett is strong, Bonnie Bennett is more than human. But she found that she breaks just as easily as any human. The silence haunted her, even when she turned on all the radios and played music at full blast she could still hear the loneliness. It took her four months to finally end it for herself. She went to Mystic Falls, to her childhood home, and turned on the cars in her garage and closed the door. Bonnie thought it would be a painless death that would close her eyes and carry her into the dark abyss. But it was painful. Her ribs ached with pain as her body was wrecked with coughing, her lungs screaming for oxygen, her eyes stinging with tears because she allowed herself to die like this.

Bonnie rose again of course. 

Because that’s what women like Bonnie do.

No matter how many times life knocks her down, she will get up sooner or later, whether she likes it or not.

She is strong.

Regardless, suicide was a great way for Bonnie to just stop thinking. A great way for her not to feel.

Just chug that bottle of bleach and let the darkness take you in for a little bit.

Sure it hurts but that was the point. 

Let the pain overwhelm you and you forget everything else...

Bonnie awoke to the sight of the blood she coughed up onto the otherwise clean kitchen counter. A nasty little sight for people with weaker stomachs but honestly, Bonnie has seen worse evidence of her suicides in the last few decades. She recalls a time she broke into an Egyptian coven’s library and found herself sliced in half. Bonnie woke up to see half of her body lying on the ground with all her gross organs staining the carpet. 

Ms. Cuddles sits on the counter watching Bonnie wake up, thankfully spared from any bloodstains. The recently deceased puts the glass of water down and stretches with her hands above her head, shaking off the stiffness that comes from being dead. Bonnie looks down to see her shirt stained with her blood as well and walks to the nearest bedroom with Ms. Cuddles in hand. She needed a change of clothes.

It’s a teenage girl’s room, all red satin and pink lace with golden accents everywhere. It’s a direct contrast to the rest of the house which is all beige and filled with books. It’s the shelves of books that attracted Bonnie to the house in the first place. Still, the room is nice. Not something Bonnie would do herself but something she can appreciate. She fingers through the jewelry hanging from the vanity. Makeup clutters the vanity as well, giving Bonnie the idea to play dress up. It’s one of the less harmful and more fun ways to pass time in the Prison World. 

She runs to the closet to look for an outfit to wear. Maybe more if the teenager has a nice enough wardrobe to walk the catwalk in. Bonnie throws open the closet doors to see a sea of red clothes inside the walk in closet. A gray plaid blazer with large gold buttons catches Bonnie’s eye and she shimmies out of her clothes to try it on. It’s big and since Bonnie isn’t wearing a shirt underneath, shows off a healthy amount of cleavage. She yanks a red pencil skirt off a hanger and puts it on as well. She poses in front of the mirror, wondering if Kai would like seeing her in this outfit. No, no, no, no, no. She cannot think of him. She refuses to think of him. Bonnie shakes her head free of him. 

Bonnie walks through the closet, turning her nose at every pastel pink polo shirt and every blouse with a pussy bow. Bonnie yanks random clothes off the hangers and throws them on the ground. She steals a straw hat with a red ribbon off a teddy bear in the closet and places it on top of Ms. Cuddles. The bear gets grumpy when she is excluded from dress up. Bonnie is about to give up when she sees a red dress in the corner of the closet. She pulls it out to reveal a red satin prom dress. Bonnie smiles and immediately undresses. 

She spins around in the dress, her mood boosted. “What do you think?” Bonnie poses for Ms.Cuddles.

Ms. Cuddles looks at Bonnie’s outfit with appreciation. Bonnie smiles.

“That is so sweet of you to say.” She picks up her friend and the two walk out of the house. Not before Bonnie takes some of the jewelry of course.

Bonnie is pretty sure she’s in the midwest but she isn’t positive. When the Ascendant was lost and Kai refused to help her, Bonnie just got into the car and drove as far as she could from Mystic Falls. She couldn’t stand to be in that place- be near Kai- for a second longer. She stopped at a fancy hotel about twelve hours later to get the stench of Mystic Falls off of her and raid abandoned suitcases for new clothes. After the reset happened, Bonnie turned on the television for Ms. Cuddles and went to go drink some bleach in the bathroom. Afterwards, she took one of the cars in the parking lot and kept on driving. She might have stayed in Northern Texas for a while but she couldn’t be sure. The town she is currently in had a record store which Bonnie took as a good reason to stay for the night. It is that record store she is currently walking to. Or skipping to rather. The pearl necklace she stole bounces happily around her neck.

Bonnie opens the door to the record store which is impressive despite clearly not being updated since the eighties. It’s two stories tall with the best sound system available in 1994. The walls are painted purple and covered with posters of the hottest bands. Each section has a neon light over each genre. Bonnie walks barefoot to the grunge section and puts on Nine Inch Nails. The song blared from the speakers, almost deafening her and Ms. Cuddles. Bonnie runs around and dances throughout the store, throwing random records at the wall as she does so.

\---

Watching life go on without him is admittedly difficult to watch. Kai is grateful his family mourns him but watching them mourn is worse than those who do not mourn him. Kai wishes he could send a message to them. He doesn’t know what he’d say but he just does to talk to them. He misses conversations with people. Being a ghost or whatever he is, is like watching the world from behind a glass window.

Like, now. Kai watched as the vampires and Elena asked his brother for a favor. 

“Can you do the cloaking spell? Or find one that would help us?” Stefan asks.

Jake rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know guys. Cloaking was more of Kai’s expertise.”

Kai studied the boring, practical spells while Jake handled the flashier magic. 

The trio looked at each other at the mention of Kai. “I understand, Jake and it doesn’t get easier living without your best friend. But trust me when I say, Kai would not want you to keep mourning him. He would want you to protect us.”

Jake chewed the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know if I could do it to all three of you though. It sounds like a lot of magic.”

“We all saw what you did to Klaus Mikealson. If anyone can do it, it’s you.” Elena encourages.

The comment stings, just a little. Kai knows Elena is right because it was Jake’s magic that nearly defeated Klaus but to dismiss him like that? Kai scoffs and mumbles, “Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings,  _ Elena _ .”

“I know what you guys saw but,” Jake sighs in defeat. “Look, I’ll go through some of Kai’s things, see if I can find a spell that can do that.”

Kai’s room remained untouched since his death. It was an absolute mess- notebooks everywhere, action figures covered in dust, and academic trophies cluttering surfaces. Jake refused to let anyone clean up his twin’s mess. Jo screamed at anyone who would dare mention that her son no longer lived there. Matt had innocently volunteered to help them move Kai’s things when they felt ready to and Jo told him to never return to her house again. Even after a couple months, Jo had yet to forgive Matt for the comment. She locked the door that day so no one would enter it and take away all her son’s things. Jake used magic to pick the lock and would occasionally sit on the rug, pretending his brother was still with him. Jo would do the same, tracing the drawings Kai drew on the wall and the growth chart next to the door.

The kettle Jake left on the stove starts to whistle. “I have to get that.” Jake points behind him. Now that Kai died, all the chores have been passed down to Jake. While it was nice in the beginning, Kai wishes he was able to do something to pass the time. Never has thawing frozen meat been so appealing in his life. Or afterlife, to be accurate.

Elena nods and smiles gratefully. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I owe you a coffee from Starbucks.”

“Iced coffee with half and half.” Jake smiles back.

“Of course.” Elena smiles before Jake closes the door. 

Jake goes to the kitchen and turns off the stove, the whistling slowly dying down. Kai watches his brother pour the boiled water over the frozen chicken and check the mail. Jo had called and said she was going to be late coming home again so it was up to Jake to test his cooking skills. The athletic twin originally wanted to order pizza but after two weeks of eating nothing but pizza, Kai used his ‘twin telepathy’ (more like using the power of suggestion and a lot of yelling) to make his brother change his mind. Perhaps the reason he is still on Earth is because Kai wants to make sure his loved ones can take care of themselves before he ascends to the pearly gates or whatever.

Kai watched as his brother dialed the number of their grandfather. The grandfather their mother refused to speak of. Jake and him only met the man twice in their lives. The first time is when they were born. The second time was when both boys were thirteen and Joshua stopped by Mystic Falls unannounced. He insisted he be called Grandpa JJ and to call the twins by their full names- Malachai and Jacques- no matter how much the twins insisted. He took his grandkids out for ice cream and talked to their mom in private.

“H-hello?” Jake asks.

“Hello, who is this?” The voice on the other line asks.

“Grandpa JJ?” Jake whispers.

“Jaques? Is that you?” The voice asks. There is some rustling before their grandfather speaks again. “Is this Jacques? Or is it Malachai?”

“Um, no Grandpa.” Jake chokes a little at the sound of his brother’s name. “This is Jacques.”

Kai can hear his grandfather let out a gasp of happiness. “It’s so great to hear from you. Does your mother know you’re calling me?” 

Jake and Kai never got the story as to why their mother cut off all ties to her family and their associates. They were going to ask the one day their grandfather came to visit but Jo quickly booted him out before they could. It was a sensitive topic and one that was simply off limits even after the twins discovered their magic.

“Um, no she doesn’t. I did get your letter though. I didn’t read it but I’ll give it to my mom when she gets home. I’d hate to ask but I wouldn’t call you without a good reason.”

“Of course.” Grandpa JJ says seriously. “I know it must be awkward but we’re family, you should not hesitate to call for any reason.”

“Thanks,” Jake says, a weight feeling like it’s being lifted. “So um, I recently discovered I had magic and I need a spell to help my friends out.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s fine, I just want to make sure they’re safe.”

“How admirable, loyalty is a Gemini trait. You must get it from me.” The twins’ grandpa says proudly. Kai can just tell by his tone that the old man must be puffing his chest up.

“I probably do. I wanna know if you know any cloaking spells. Something that will make it hard for them to be found?”

“That’s all? A simple cloaking spell? Your mother should have taught that to you when you were a child. Or when you discovered your powers. It’s a Gemini Coven specialty.” Grandpa JJ says it casually but the comment bites at Kai. 

He discovered his powers when he was a kid, long before Jake found out in high school. Why didn’t his mom teach him magic? From what Grandpa JJ is saying, Jake is asking about a spell  _ children _ know how to do. Maybe it’s a stupid pride thing but it hurts that Kai and his brother fell into this world without a real safety net. They should have learned magic from their mom when Kai found out. Through his cloud of anger, Kai misses the steps to the cloaking spell.

“Is there anything else you want to know about magic my boy?”

“Grandpa,” Jake says hesitantly. “There is one other thing I want to ask you.”

“Whatever you need.”

“It’s Kai- Malachai. The reason he can’t come to the phone is because- well it’s because he’s dead.” The words fall out of Jake’s mouth and he wipes away his tears. It’s been months and saying that Kai is dead still brings Jake to tears.

There is a long silence on the other line. “Oh my dear boy, I am so sorry to hear that. H-how are you and your mom holding up? Do you need anythi-” Grandpa JJ asks before Jake cuts him off with a chilling line.

“Are there any spells that would bring him to life?” Jake asks. Kai snaps his head to look at his brother with wide eyes.

“Jake, what are you doing?” Kai asks. He’s done some research on the subject. Magic is all about balance. To bring one person to life, another must die in their place.

“I know it’s dangerous, grandpa,” Jake continues. “But I have to try. I can’t do this anymore without him.”

Jake didn’t say what ‘this’ is but Kai understands. Jake can’t do all the chores by himself, he can’t cook by himself, he can’t help Jo pay the bills by himself, he can’t do magic by himself. He can’t have fun by himself, he can’t share looks when someone says something odd by himself, he can’t tease someone without consequence by himself, he can’t survive by himself. Life without Kai, is not life to Jake.

“That’s really ambitious for a witch. Even a new witch- your mother really never told you about your heritage?”

“No which is why I’ve come to ask you. My mom is not going to help so I’m coming to you- is there a spell that will bring him to life?”

“There is one that I know of but Jacques, it’s incredibly dangerous-”

“I don’t care if it’s dangerous.” Jake told his grandfather, voice firm and uncompromising. “If I can hold down Klaus Mikealson, I can bring my brother back to life.”

“You held down an Original?” Grandpa JJ asks, his interest piqued. “The Original hybrid?”

“I did.” Jake says firmly and nods despite the fact no one- save Kai- can see him.

“By yourself?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to need to find a few things, grab a pen and paper to get it all down.”

Jake ran around to grab a pen and paper then put their grandpa on speaker.

“Grandpa JJ, I’m ready.” Jake had his pen to the paper, ready to write.

“Here’s the ingredients. You need several dark objects to draw your power from. If you draw from these sources, the balance of nature should not be disturbed. The key word being  _ should _ . If at any time you find yourself bleeding or in any sort of pain, stop the spell  _ immediately _ .”

“You know I can’t do that. I won’t leave my brother to stay dead.”

Kai grabs Jake’s shoulder, hoping he can lend his strength to him. If not, at least offer his brother some support.

“Then get a witch to channel and try again. You were strong enough to defeat an Original and I’m proud of you for that, but resurrection is a whole different art. This is a whole different kind of  _ magic _ . The spell is from a New Orleans coven and they get their magic from their ancestors. We don’t have that kind luxury for our magic.”

“Where does our magic come from then?” Jake asks.

“Sacred rituals performed by the coven leader.”

Jake nods in understanding though his grandfather can’t see it. “So I’d need to be on the same coast and talk to the coven leader to perform the spell.”

Kai wonders if this would mean that their grandfather and Jake could get into some trouble for doing the spell. Jake voices this very concern. Kai looks down and sees that his hand still rests on his brother’s shoulder. Could Jake be reading Kai’s thoughts? Could this be that twin magic their mother mentioned?

“No,” Grandpa JJ firmly tells him. “As long as you don’t boast to everyone about this, no harm will come to you or me. And if I do get in trouble with the Gemini, that is my burden to bear Jacques. You are my family and family comes before anything else.”

Kai is grateful his grandfather was willing to risk his neck for the grandchildren he never sees. Kai is even more grateful to have a brother willing to risk his life to bring back his twin. Jake will bring his brother back to life because if almost defeating Klaus only a glimse of Jake’s power at a beginner’s level, resurrection will be a piece of cake for him. Kai will need to find a way to show them he is in their forever debt once living again.

It took Jake over four months to collect the dark objects. In addition to these objects already being difficult to find and procure, Mystic Falls was encountering yet another problem. But, in the end Kai was resurrected and that’s all that matters.

Resurrection was the opposite of death-

Feeling whole and then the noise of your breathing filling your ears.

Kai was alive again.

And he had his family to thank for that.

\---

Kai walked around Mystic Falls, the silence absolutely deafening. This wretched town that was a mockery of everything he knew. Where Kai grew up knowing as the convenience store was replaced by a video rental store. In the place of where the Starbucks Kai would go on weekdays was in the present was now a children’s toy store. The store Kai knew as his favorite Italian restaurant was now a carpet outlet. There was a forest full of trees in place of the playground Kai remembered playing tag in. Nothing was right about anything in this town.

Why was he still here? The world is wide open, ready for him to explore. So why was he still here? He could drive in any car he wanted and get out of this town. Kai would never admit it, but he is a romantic. He liked to think of his future. He knew it would never happen but he would like to find a nice girl to settle down with. They would find a house in the nice, quiet side of town. Maybe somewhere with a lot of trees. Kai could never see himself as a father, he raised his brother and mother so the thought of raising anyone else didn’t appeal to him. But he liked the idea of being with someone and filling their house with enough love that they didn’t need children. He would make her breakfast in bed and she would make him dinner, on the weekends they would have picnics in their backyard. Maybe they’d have a little garden in the backyard. Kai didn’t know if he would use magic, he always used it in life threatening situations he couldn’t think of it used in a casual setting. Maybe if it would make her happy he would learn how to make little fireworks or a tea that gives her good dreams. He would make her happy and she would make him happy. He would be happy, peaceful, and in love. 

But the more he thought about that little dream, the more sour it felt. Every day that went by felt like an eternity. Now the mere thought of settling down with a nice girl in the peaceful side of town felt like ash in his mouth.

Kai throws his bottle at the glass window of a store that would one day become a pilate’s studio. The glass hit him back, cutting Kai’s skin. Kai put his hands down and looked at the wound. It was a small cut. Kai would sometimes contemplate self harm. Back home it would just be another intrusive thought, one he would quickly shut down in favor of happier thoughts. But recently, it’s become a lot harder to push those thoughts away. His happy thoughts didn’t do the trick anymore. He had nothing to distract him or anyone to stop him. The other day Kai laid on the floor and held a knife to his stomach, knowing that if he sneezed or breathed too hard, the blade would enter his stomach and he would bleed out on the floor. No one would stop him or come patch him up. Sometimes he slipped under the water during a bath and stayed there until his lungs screamed for oxygen. He never committed the actual act of self harm but looking down at the red cut, Kai thinks it could be just the thing that would snap him out of his funk. If anything else, he would feel something. 

Kai breaks off a shard from the window and drags it along his palm. 

Shit.

What was he thinking? Kai didn’t want to die. He just wanted the loneliness to end. He steps over the glass to walk into the store and finds a messy office. In one of the cabinets is a first aid kit, which he uses to treat his wound.

Once he is all bandaged up, Kai slouches in the leather chair with duct tape on the seat and tears at his hair. Kai didn’t want to die. But he knew inside that no one was going to come for him. He didn’t even really know how he entered this world to begin with. Add to the fact that the Ascendant is nearly impossible to find, Kai knew there was no way he was leaving this place. He was never getting out of here.

But he couldn’t stay. 

Kai couldn’t stay and let his days be filled with drinking and masturbating and feeling nothing. He couldn’t stand the loneliness that crowds him everyday. He couldn’t stand that everyday the silence will grow louder and louder. He couldn’t stand to watch the same episode over and over again. He couldn’t stand and let the feeling he recognizes as depression take over his life. Not again. He can’t do it.

He doesn’t want to die. He just wants to stop living.

Then again, he isn’t really living is he? The second his heart stops beating will just make his death official.

He’s died once before, another time won’t hurt him.

No.

Kai can’t think like this. He refuses to. This is just another sick thought his brain conjures up because he is fucked up. He can’t help it but he can prevent it. He just needs to calm down. Kai bunches his fists, nails digging into his fresh wound, and counts to ten. He reaches ten and takes a deep breath. He can refocus his suicidal energy towards something else. Running, he’ll go running. It’ll clear his head and all these bad thoughts will be gone. After the run he’ll be fine. Kai will be fine.

When he passes by the broken window, he puts a piece of glass in his pocket.

Just in case.

\---

The speakers die down as the last song on the Nirvana album comes to a close. Bonnie collapses on the ground to catch her breath. Her sweaty skin sticks to the satin dress and the whole store is in disarray, Bonnie notes with delight. She deeply inhales and sits up, pulling Ms. Cuddles onto her lap.

“I am famished.” She tells the bear. “I think I saw a Waffle House when we drove in. Does that sound good to you?”

Ms. Cuddles looks back at Bonnie.

“Great,” Bonnie takes the straw hat off her friend and stands up. “But first, we gotta change. This dress feels disgusting.”

Bonnie looks through the band tees behind the register counter for something to replace the dress. Her options were an XS Led Zeppelin shirt, an XL Garfield shirt, and an XXL Whitney Houston shirt. Dropping the sweaty dress on the floor, Bonnie changed into the Whitney Houston shirt. She also put the Led Zeppelin shirt on Ms. Cuddles, though she cut it in half so it would fit the teddy bear.

She walks to the nearest restaurant, a Waffle House. There isn't any food ready on the counter for Bonnie to eat so she walks to the kitchen to prepare some waffles for herself. As Bonnie mixes the ingredients, she begins to crave conversation. 

“I gotta say Ms. Cuddles, this isn’t the worst Waffle House we’ve been in.” Bonnie giggles. “Do you remember the one in Florida? Sometimes I wonder how those waffles got there. I know you’re betting on some bored employees but my money is still on bored teenagers.”

Bonnie puts the bowl down and sets up the waffle iron. “How long ago was that? That was… that was around when the two of us started traveling together right?” Bonnie nods. “Wow, that was like, forever ago. Maybe after this, the both of us should head back down there and check it out again.”

Bonnie glares back at Ms. Cuddles before pouring the batter into the pan. “No, I don’t remember where it’s at. I don’t even know where we are. But think about what a fun road trip we’ll have driving around Florida. All the beaches and the clubs. We could even go boating again. I promise I’ll remember to untie the boat this time.” 

“Okay, you gotta stop holding that over my head. It was one time!” Bonnie tells Ms. Cuddles as she leans against the counter next to her. “Sometimes I think I should’ve left you where I found you. Okay, okay, you know I’m joking. No need to be so testy.” Bonnie smiles then inhales. 

“I can’t believe we’ve been together this whole time. I wish I still kept track of the days so I’d know when we found each other again, celebrate our anniversary and whatever.” The waffle iron beeps and Bonnie takes the hot waffle out. She pours in another batch. “I still remember when I found you that first time. It was what, the third or fourth month I was in this place when I decided to drive back to Mystic Falls. I just made my peace with never leaving and I wanted to see my old house one more time. You were sitting on my bed, the same place you were when I left you. Were you as surprised to see me as I was to see you? I spent the rest of the week saying ‘sorry’ for leaving you behind when I moved.” Bonnie smiled at the memory as the waffle iron beeped again. She places the new waffle on another plate and drowns it in syrup. She grabs the other plate and puts it in front of Ms. Cuddles. 

Bonnie sits on the counter and crosses her legs. With a soft smile she looks to Ms. Cuddles and tells her, “I think, if it wasn’t for you, I would’ve tied rocks to my ankles and thrown myself into the ocean a long time ago.”

Bonnie cut into her waffle and thought back to the day she reunited with Ms. Cuddles in the Prison World. It had been a couple months since she was left alone in the Prison World. Not since she was tossed in there, no. When the Geminis left her here they would routinely come around every few months to ‘check up’ on her. Jo was the last to visit her and was the better of Bonnie’s visitors. Bonnie's four months of isolation following Jo’s visit made the memory of the girl bittersweet. She went mad without company and though Bonnie shudders at the thought of what they’d done to her during these visits, it was better than being alone. Any company was better than loneliness. She was alone with only her thoughts. 

Bonnie thought she was strong. That’s what she had always been told. She was a strong woman. She was a Bennett witch, after all. 

But that’s not exactly true is it?

As Jo had once pointed out, she’s not really a witch. Bonnie could only borrow powers of real witches. Real witches could make their own magic. Their own magic comes from their own blood, their own bodies. Bonnie could only take and take and take and still could never have any of her own magic. And her borrowed magic only made her mad, made her crazy. It made her weak. She was weak. A weak Bennett woman, barely a witch. 

A strong Bennett witch would have control of her emotions, a strong Bennett witch could use her own magic, a strong Bennett witch would not have let herself be controlled, a Bennett witch would not let herself get turned into a machine, a Bennett witch would not have been  _ weak _ .

Joshua was right- she was a better weapon than person. She didn’t deserve to live.

So Bonnie Bennett drove to Mystic Falls, to her childhood home. She remembered that it took her a few days because she kept debating if she should just turn around and hope that the next Gemini member would listen to her pleas. Bonnie Bennett arrived at her childhood home in the early morning. The house stood tall and proud like the Bennetts who once lived there. She took a while to make her move, to decide if she should follow through or leave. In the end, she decided to stay. Bonnie parked the car in the garage, leaving the car running. In the passenger’s seat was a bottle she randomly picked off the shelf in Michigan and a letter. She took a swig of the bottle and exited the car to lie down in the middle of the garage. Bonnie closed her eyes and let herself feel peace for a few moments longer. Her peace did not last for very long as she let out a series of ugly coughs and her lungs began to scream for clean air and her eyes began to burn.

In less than an hour, Bonnie Bennett died at 10:56 a.m. in the garage of the house she grew up in on May 10th because of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Fifteen minutes later, at 11:11 a.m., Bonnie Bennett rose from the dead in the garage of the house she grew up in on May 10th.

Her resurrection was not graceful or pretty. Her body was wrecked with ugly coughs that spread thick pieces of her saliva everywhere. Her vision was blurry and her eyes still stung. The room was still filled with carbon monoxide so Bonnie’s body acted on autopilot, its flight system activated, and ran clumsily out of the garage. She fell onto the floor of her kitchen, Bonnie’s lungs inhaling the air. Once she finally calmed down she walked to the sink and fixed herself a glass of water. The cool liquid soothed her sore throat, a small comfort. The kitchen was a mess, piles of unread mail cluttering the counter and more piles of ungraded papers on the dining table. Bonnie stared at the dining table. It was not the same dining table Bonnie remembered owning before she lived with the Parkers. It was a dark round table, not the tan rectangle with scratches all over the edges that Bonnie grew up with. In the back of her mind, Bonnie could remember her sister telling her that the old table finally collapsed and broke after years of use but Bonnie could not think of her childhood kitchen with a new table. She looked around the room some more hoping no other changes were made to the house. Bonnie walked down the hallway, pictures of the family on the wall with a few recent ones of her mother and sister only. Tears pricked at Bonnie’s eyes as she saw more changes to her childhood home- a new pair of lamps, a fresh coat of paint in the living room, a cluster of plants in the corner. These were not major changes but changes nonetheless. Bonnie took in a deep breath and walked upstairs to her bedroom. Bracing herself, she turned the knob and swung open the door. Excluding the thick layer of dust, not a single thing was changed from Bonnie’s old room. Everything was exactly how she left it, including the one friend she had convinced herself to leave behind all those years ago.

“The day I killed myself here for the first time, you were sitting on my bed like you were waiting for me to come back. After all these years, all this time, there you were.” Bonnie looked at Ms. Cuddles for the first time since recalling the memory. “And here you are, still with me now, decades later.”

Bonnie stroked the cheek of her beloved bear. She held Ms. Cuddles in her arms as she cried in her childhood bedroom, cried at her inability to die, cried at her actions, and cried because she was no longer alone. This bear was with her when she learned how to perfect grilled cheese, when she sang only Whitney Houston at a karaoke bar for a week, when she went through that grunge phase. This bear was Bonnie’s shoulder to cry on when certain thoughts got too dark and suicide wouldn’t make them go away. This bear was the one to share Bonnie’s jokes. This bear has been Bonnie’s best friend for almost two decades. 

“You are the only thing, only person, who has never betrayed me. You are the reason I look forward to coming back to life. Thank you.” Bonnie looks to her beloved friend with a smile.

\---

In order to give his life more structure, more meaning and to prevent him from letting the depression take over his life completely, Kai has taken to running. After his resurrection, he read articles on how working out fights off depression. It’s something he could never think to do back at home because it sounds like a load of shit. His depression already made it difficult to even leave his bed, much less do intensive exercise. But, Kai has nothing to do here so he runs. He needs to just run forward, he can’t look back, he can’t let himself think. He breathes, he sweats, and he does not think. He just runs.

Maybe this is why Jake was the better twin. All the exercise he did made all the endorphins and serotonin go to his head, making it impossible for him to think and be sad. All that exercise gave Jake friends, it gave him scholarships, it gave him stability, it gave him all the girls, it gave him everything Kai could never have.

When Kai realized what he was thinking, he ran faster to get away from those thoughts. 

He thought about his mom and his friends and his brother. 

During this run, Kai finds a Starbucks in town he never noticed before. Deciding he can take a short break, Kai wipes the sweat off his forehead and enters the building. The green sign on the wall and the smell of coffee beans welcomed him. If there was one thing he would say he liked about the Prison World, it would be that he didn’t have to wait in line anymore. However, this did pose a new problem for Kai- how to work the coffee machine. It took him a while to figure out the machine, but it kept his mind occupied on something other than himself. And the reward was worth it. Kai is treated with a cup of simple black coffee. Partially because it’s what he likes, another part because it was the easiest to make. He inhales the coffee, his body relaxing at the smell. Coffee machines weren’t super popular household items during the time so finding this Starbucks is a miracle. He takes the first sip and his body relaxes.

Kai takes another sip and lets the taste wash over his tongue. It’s been so long since he had coffee and the taste of it felt like home. Kai had thought about going to the house that his mom would one day buy but as soon as he stepped on the property, he couldn’t take another step forward. A plastic tricycle was on the lawn and so were little plastic trucks. A pair of black rocking chairs were placed on the porch with a chessboard between them. The mailbox was a white metal box with rust on the flag. There wasn’t a porch swing or blue shutters. There wasn’t a mailbox with birds painted on the side. This was someone else’s house. This wasn’t Kai’s home. It wouldn’t be his home for another two years. 

Kai wipes away his tears. He can’t think of home right now. He walks out of the coffee shop, taking large sips of his coffee. The drink lasts Kai about five steps and so he turns around to throw the drink away in the trash can next to the Starbucks door. Instead of Starbucks however, Kai sees the toy store in its place. He takes a step back then looks at his cup to see if he added something in his coffee. However, when he looked at his hand he found no coffee. But the taste of coffee remains on his tongue. Did he drink coffee? He remembered drinking coffee, he drank black coffee today. He remembered that he did. He is sure of it. It was plain black coffee because it was the easier of his favorite drinks to make. But where did the coffee place go? Even with the Reset, entire buildings do not just disappear. He knows there was a Starbucks here. Where did his cup go? Drinking coffee felt like home and the first time in what feels like forever that Kai felt happy. Now the lingering taste of coffee felt like ashes on his tongue. Is his mind tricking him into having fleeing feelings of happiness to stop him from killing himself sooner? Because if that’s the case, hallucinations may quicken his decision to end it all.

Kai rubs his face. He’s getting worse. Sinking to his knees, Kai pulls at his hair. He’s losing his mind, he has to be. He thought he went through the worst of it already but clearly everything before now was just a warm up. First the depression and now hallucinations. Kai could deal with the suicidal thoughts, he could deal with the long periods of numbness and fatigue. He could deal with all of that, he has been dealing with it for a long time now. But this?  _ This _ Kai does not know how to deal with. This is actual insanity. What’s next? Will he be hearing voices? Is his mind so broken beyond repair? Is his family going to find him, a useless shell of his former self? Should he just spare his family the pain of taking care of his deteriorated state and just kill himself?

Kai stands up. He can’t think about this anymore. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s  _ fine _ . He’s overreacting, he’s fine. Kai looks where the coffee shop once stood. A swell of anger runs through him. To his left, Kai sees a pile of painted rocks in front of a building, likely made by all the school kids who once lived in the town. Kai grabs a rock and throws it through the window of the toy store. The glass breaks but does not shatter. Kai levitates the rocks in the air, taking each one to throw as he walks closer and closer to the store. He picks up another rock and throws it, and another rock he throws again, and again, and again until the window is shattered without a single piece of glass hanging onto it. Kai lets out a heavy and uneven breathe, the idea of stopping not even reaching his mind. He screams, throwing more rocks through the store. He throws and throws and throws more rocks until Kai is just left with one. It’s a yellow rock with a smiley face on it. Kai clenches it around his hand. He remembers a spell he was taught, a spell taught by the girl he tries to get off his mind, and whispers it to the rock. The rock begins to glow a yellow color. With a throw Jake would have been proud of, Kai throws it into the store with all the strength in his body. In an instant, the world fills with light and when Kai opens his eyes the store is gone, as if it never existed.

Kai looks at the vacant lot, his shoulder moving up and down with every deep breath. He touches his nose, blood running from it. He wipes the blood away, his eyes unable to leave the vacant lot. Kai stares at it until the mere image of what he has done has finally reached his mind. He knows there are no consequences in the Prison World, there is no one to see what it is that he has done. What he used his powers for. But it nonetheless fills him up with terror. Kai turns away from where the building once stood and starts running again. He runs through town- avoiding where Starbucks once stood- before going back to the Salvatore house. 

Kai doesn’t feel like killing himself when he gets back to his room.

Kai doesn’t feel like using his magic when he gets back to his room.

But when he finds the piece of glass in his pocket, he does draw a red line on his arm.

It hurts but Kai finds it a welcome distraction.

\---

When Bonnie and Ms.Cuddles finish their waffles, it’s already dark outside. The moon is invisible in the sky- the Prison World ensuring it’s always a new moon- which lets the stars shine bright without competition. Bonnie prefers small towns to big cities just because she likes the view of the night sky free from light pollution. In Bonnie’s hand, Ms. Cuddles complains about the syrup in her fur loudly. Bonnie searches for a laundromat to wash her in. She recalls seeing one a few blocks away from the record store in that direction. Bonnie leaves Ms. Cuddles in the washing machine, promising to come back in a few hours. Just because Ms. Cuddles is busy does not mean Bonnie has to stay and watch her. 

The song ‘Groove Thang’ by Zhane plays in Bonnie’s head and she does not stop herself from dancing out the door. She runs into the street, spinning and spinning and spinning until she collapses on the pavement. Bonnie lets out a dry chuckle as she watches the never changing night sky. Oh how Bonnie wished for a car to run her over. Oh how Bonnie wished Kai would run her over. At least then she’d know he was still here. At least then she’d know she wasn’t alone. No. She can’t let herself think that. She’s better by herself. Being alone with Ms. Cuddles is better than being alone with him. She can’t think of this. 

Bonnie closes her eyes and thinks about what book she should get from the library. Romance was off the table, as was fantasy and sci-fi. She was in the mood for excitement. Bonnie stretched her arms above her head as she thought about which genre to read. Her eyes open as she decides on mystery. Mysteries were good, Bonnie liked mysteries. When it was done well, it gave her enough stimulation for her to forget about her problems. Bonnie searched the night sky for the big dipper. As her eyes roamed the sky, something caught her eye. Was that star moving? And blinking? Bonnie blinked twice and the moving, blinking star had stopped. Bonnie shook her head. Her mind was playing tricks on her. This is why she doesn’t read sci-fi books. It would fill her head with ideas. 

Bonnie sits up. She won’t think about how her mind is deteriorating piece by piece. Instead she walks into the laundromat. She squats down in front of Ms.Cuddles who is still swirling round and around the washing machine. The humming of the washing machine and the slow ticking of the analogue clock fills the air. Bonnie is so tired.

She rests her head against the washing machine door then pushes herself off so she can lie on the dirty laundromat floor. She takes two deep breaths before the washing machine stops. Bonnie pauses to look up at the washing machine. She’s pretty positive the washing machine had at least twenty more minutes left. She sits up and peers into the 

She can’t do this again. She can’t be alone. Not again.

With a feral scream, Bonnie kicks in the door of the washing machine. When she is done kicking it, the glass has cut into her leg and the door can hardly be called a door anymore.

\---

Damon’s baby blue Camaro sits in the Salvatore's driveway as it has for the last few months. It hasn’t been driven since it reappeared in the driveway after the reset, since Bonnie drove away. Kai thinks about just climbing into it and driving away sometimes but he can’t bring himself to do it. Today, however, Kai wants to go for a drive. He could take one of the other abandoned cars in Mystic Falls but there was something exciting about taking Damon’s car without the vampire’s knowledge. He was always an asshole, they were friends but he was still an asshole. Kai climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the car. The low vibrations of the car were a familiar comfort to the witch and he drove away from the boardinghouse. 

Kai drives and drives, taking in the familiar sights of his hometown as it brushes by him. Kai drives and drives, smelling the fresh air whipping past his ears. Kai drives and drives, tapping his fingers against the metal of the car to the rhythm of the radio. Kai drives and drives as each song on the album fades into the next. Kai drives and he drives until he sees it. He takes in a deep breath and closes the window. The last song on the album comes to a close and silence fills Kai’s ears once more. He rests his head against his steering wheel, taking in deep breaths as he takes in the silence.

The thoughts keep taking over his mind, his body. He thought he could fight them, he’s been fighting his whole life. But the thoughts are getting stronger and stronger. Either that or he’s getting weaker. He’s probably getting weaker. Kai had always tried to be the strong one in his family but he knows he’s always been the weaker one. It’s why he should just close his eyes, let go of the steering wheel, and press his foot on the glass. It’s an intrusive thought but Kai can’t find any strength to say no. He has no  _ desire _ to say no. 

Kai sits up and presses his foot on the gas. His hands fall from the steering wheel and he leans back, letting his body go slack. He doesn’t open his eyes and he doesn’t let his foot off the pedal. He’s just so tired of fighting. Kai feels the car moving around, driving closer and closer towards the bridge. 

\---

Bonnie stands in front of her childhood home. It is exactly as she remembers- tall and proud. It survived multiple generations of the Bennett family and everything Bonnie Bennett has thrown at it. Not wanting to dawdle on her front lawn or be seen by the other half of the Prison World population, Bonnie walks straight in. Nothing changed since her first visit and still completely different than the house she grew up in. But she can’t look at the new coat of paint or the lamps so she goes straight for her room. There Ms. Cuddles sits, waiting for Bonnie. The witch runs to the bear and hugs her. A few days without her bear, her companion, her best friend and Bonnie is almost mad. Bonnie curls up on the bed, Ms.Cuddles in her arms. Bonnie’s thumb circles the soft fur and her cheek rubs against the soft head of the little bear. The scent of sandalwood lingers in the air and the posters on Bonnie’s old wall stare back at her. Tears also fall onto the bear’s fur. Bonnie wipes away the tears and sits up. 

Candles. She needs candles.

It’s a ritual she does. Everytime she comes back to her childhood home, she burns it down. To remind herself that she can’t go home. To keep herself from going home. Bonnie avoids coming here when she can, she didn’t even enter this side of town when she found the boys. The only time she comes home is to get Ms.Cuddles. 

There’s a drawer full of candles in the kitchen, most of them from students at Whitmore. Bonnie ignores the candles she’s already lit up before and grabs a few from the back. Huckleberry Sugar Blossom, Amber and Vanilla blossom, and Island Coconut. Setting fire to the matches, Bonnie wishes she had magic so she could forgo the candles and just get it over with. Though, she will admit it can be calming to walk from room to room, setting everything on fire. Bonnie lights Huckleberry Sugar Blossom and sets the living room curtains on fire. She watches as the flames eat the curtains when something outside the window catches her eye. She peers out the window to see a car being driven erratically through the streets. Bonnie peers closer, wondering what Kai could be doing. He makes a sharp turn down the road and Bonnie tries to recall what is down that road. When she remembers, it is then the heat becomes unbearable and Bonnie jumps back. She runs out of the house and in the direction of Kai. Bonnie gets there just in time to watch as the car drives over the bridge.

“No,no,no,no,no.” Bonnie panics. She stands over the edge of the bridge, watching the car sink into the water. She screams. “Fuck!”

Bonnie quickly takes off her backpack and sets Ms.Cuddles down. She dives off the bridge, thankful for the summer she was a lifeguard. She swims until she can clearly see the blue car at the bottom of the river. She swims closer, peaking into the front seat. The airbags were deployed and Kai was unconsciously pressed against it. Bonnie tried yanking the door handle but the water pressure kept the door closed. Panicking, she banged her fist against the window. Not for the first time, Bonnie wished she had magic. She tried to feel around if she had any magic left inside but felt cold and empty. Bonnie’s lungs also felt like they were burning. She swam to the top for air and a moment to reassess her situation. Bonnie treaded the water, looking around for something that might help her. In the corner of her eye she spotted a rock with a sharp edge. She quickly swam to it and once it was in her hands, she dove back down. Bonnie held onto the door mirror for leverage and swung the rock into the window. It took a few tries but the window eventually started to crack. The small crack gave Bonnie the encouragement she needed to keep swinging. She only hoped her ticket out of here wasn’t dead though for her own lungs were starting to burn again. The window was completely cracked so Bonnie kicked in, not bothering to be careful. If she hurt Kai, oh well. The boy was a witch, he could heal himself, Bonnie thought a little bitterly. The glass shattered, tearing small holes in the airbag and it slowly began to deflate.

Bonnie was only running on adrenaline at this point. She pulls Kai’s body out of the car and swims to the surface. She barely has time to gasp for air and heads straight for land. Bonnie drops him on land, his legs still in the water. Kai’s skin looks pale and his lips a little blue. The thought of him dying enrages Bonnie.

“Only I can kill you!” Bonnie screams. She puts her hands on his neck and finds a barely noticeable pulse. “Fuck! How did you do CPR again?” 

Shit, she didn’t have time to remember the lifeguard test she took decades ago. Kai’s pulse was getting shallower and shallower.

“Fuck you!” Bonnie screams. “You don’t get to destroy the ascendant and leave me you dick! I am the only one who gets to kill you! I am the only one who makes you suffer until you find a way to get us out of here! Get back here you fucker!” She slams her fist on his chest in anger. “Only! I! Get! To! Kill! You!” She slams her fist into his chest with every word. Still Kai remained still.

Bonnie could see time was running out and quickly siphoned him. Kai was weak so Bonnie wasn’t able to siphon enough from him without killing him completely. She needed him alive. 

“Kai, don’t you dare die. If you see your grandmother at the end of that tunnel, tell her to fuck off and come back here, you stupid fucker!” She checked his pulse again. Kai was dead. “You asshole! You fucking asshole.”

She cried, hot, angry tears streaming down her face. Bonnie sits beside his corpse, Kai’s skin paler than ever. She has felt despair and hopeless many times throughout her life. Kai’s death may be the worst its felt in a long time. Bonnie sits back and wipes away her tears. She can’t bare to look at her last bit of hope dead and pale beside her so she looks down at her hands resting on her lap. Then her eyes trail up to her shirt, still wet from swim and… the blood from her latest suicide attempt. Bonnie snaps her head to Kai’s corpse. She doesn’t know if what she is thinking will work but she will try. 

She is a Bennett dammit. 

She will make it work. 

Determined, Bonnie walks over to her backpack and Ms. Cuddles on the bridge. She picks both of them up and grabs a pocket knife and grimoire from the bag. She places Ms.Cuddles down next to Kai and opens the spellbook to the page she has in mind. Reading over it, Bonnie slices open Kai’s hand. Rigor mortis has yet to set in so the Gemini blood freely falls from his veins. She does the same to her hand, her powerful Bennett blood falling from her veins. With the last bit of magic she feels inside of her she holds his hand- cut on top of cut- and with great concentration, she says the incantation. 

She presses their hands together, bringing it to her forehead. She’s aware she’s positioned like a prayer- on her knees chanting the incantation, hoping that she has enough magic for the spell to work, and hoping the spirits would hear her plea if she wasn’t strong enough. Bonnie repeated the spell over, and over again. She needed Kai alive.

She says the spell again.

And again.

And again.

By the fourth time Bonnie says the spell, she has lost all hope. Of course the spell didn’t work. She’s weak and barely a witch. Bonnie lets go of Kai’s stiff hand, letting it fall to the sand below. 

“Fuck you!” She screams and bangs her fists against his chest, tears falling from her face again. Bonnie doesn’t even bother to wipe them away again. It’s not like Kai is going to wake up and judge her. “Fuck you for destroying the ascendant and leaving me alone! You fucking dick!” 

Bonnie is alone again, only this time she has a corpse.

\---

Kai wakes up to someone beating on his chest and yelling at him. 

“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” The voice screams, each ‘fuck you’ accentuated by a punch to the chest. “I should’ve been the one to kill you! You low-life, backstabbing, Gemini, piece of shit! Come back here and-”

Before the voice can finish their threat, the latest punch is enough for the water in Kai’s lungs to force itself out. He turns to his side and pukes out the water until all Kai is left with is the disgusting aftertaste of river water. 

Bonnie stops beating up Kai when he hunches over his side and starts ejecting the water from his body. His disgusting display of sickness lets Bonnie give out a sigh of relief and a small smile. Her spell worked. 

“Thank you spirits. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She whispers gratefully.

Once Kai’s lungs are filled with oxygen once again, he turns to see Bonnie sitting beside him. For a moment, Kai is speechless. He had spent a lot of time thinking about the day he would see another person, much less Bonnie again. It’s not something he thought would ever happen to him again. For him to see Bonnie again, and to see her with a relieved smile. It’s enough for him to smile back at her. But her smile falls quickly.

Bonnie takes out her pocket knife again and slices open Kai’s neck. Kai’s hands immediately go to his neck, red liquid spilling out of it uncontrollably. He tries to put pressure on it but it only results in his hands covered in his own blood. Kai stares back at Bonnie’s cold, unforgiving eyes. She watches him choke on his own blood and, deciding he wasn’t dying quick enough for her liking, lunges at him again to stab him in the chest.

Over and over again.

Metallic fills his senses before dark red fills his vision. Kai watches helplessly as Bonnie mutilates him, terribly confused as to why she brought him back to life, only to kill him again. Was this his punishment? Was he to remain on an eternal loop, alone before dying over and over again? 

Is this how Bonnie felt?

Perhaps she was justified in killing him.

This was Kai’s last thought as his blood was forced out of his body. For the second time that day, Kai’s body went cold.

Bonnie sat back and watched the color drain from Kai’s body, leaving behind only blood red. She wiped her face, leaving a red smear in its wake. Bonnie lets out five deep breaths as her mind catches up with her actions. She places the knife down by her side. Bonnie grabs Ms. Cuddles and pulls her onto her lap so they can sit and watch Kai.

Hours later, Kai’s hands shoot straight to his chest. He tried to feel around for the stab wounds but found only holes in his shirt and dried blood that made the fabric go stiff. The world is dark again but in the moonlight, Kai can see Bonnie looking down at him with curiosity but unmoving. Her casual acceptance of his resurrection makes Kai panic. Though his body is a little heavy, likely from rigor mortis he assumes, Kai scrambles backwards away from the Bennett witch.

“W-what did you do to me?” He asks. 

Bonnie sits up and looks at her watch. “It’s midnight.”

“What did you do to me?” Kai asks again, this time more forceful.

“I linked our lives.” She studies him then smiles. “I’m glad to see it worked. You owe me one more death.” Bonnie adds playfully.

There are several long moments of silence before Kai speaks again. “Why would you do that?”

Bonnie stares at him blankly then stands up. “Come on,” She offers her hand to him. “You should shower and get changed.”

Kai looks at the hand offered with suspicion.

He accepts her hand.

\---

The rest of their time together is spent in silence. Instead of returning to the Salvatore Boardinghouse, they decide to squat in one of the single family homes by the bridge. It’s too dark to walk back there anyway but between his two deaths and his depressive episode, Kai would be too tired even if it was the sunniest day in town. Bonnie makes him a grilled cheese before sending him upstairs to shower.

He asked her why she was so chill about letting him shower by himself. Bonnie didn’t even offer up a lewd response, just told him point blank, “As long as we are both in the Prison World, we can’t die and stay dead. So feel free to slit your wrists or drown yourself, you’ll just wake up tomorrow to do the same thing over again.”

The matter of fact way she said it, the way she avoided looking at him directly, the way Bonnie just seemed to accept the fact he could just die, it reminded Kai of himself just this morning. When he thought he was all alone and no one would care. And he supposed, from her point of view, he didn’t care about her. He killed her twice, destroyed their chances of going home, and didn’t see her in two months. Kai had to imagine, being alone for decades before meeting someone who didn’t care was a fate worse than loneliness. And after these months alone, there was no worse fate than loneliness for Kai.

Kai didn’t kill himself while showering. He just watched as his blood went down the drain, swirling around with the water. When he rubbed soap on his body however, Kai felt the ghosts of his stab wounds on his chest and neck. His life was now linked to Bonnie and her life was linked to his. It hurt to think about it, for more than one reason, so Kai just refused to think about it any longer.

When he finished his shower, he found Bonnie sitting on his bed. She’s changed into a pair of flannel pajamas though she looks dry. When she notices Kai, she stands up and makes her way out of the room until Kai stops her.

“Bonnie,” Kai says, not looking her in the eye. “Can you... stay?”

“What?” Bonnie does a double take. 

“Can you stay for the night?” He says hesitantly. “I-I-I-” He bites his bottom lip and his eyes search the floor. Bonnie waits for him, her hand anxiously swinging the door back and forth.

Kai sighs. “I don’t want to be alone. I  _ can’t _ be alone.” He corrects himself and looks up at Bonnie.

Taking her silence as a ‘no’ Kai backpedals. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Just forget it. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re fine,” Bonnie says softly, cutting him off. “I was just caught off guard. You want  _ me _ to sleep next to you?”

“Um, yeah. You know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” He weakly jokes, his eyes looking desperately at her. He anxiously rubs the blanket between his pointer finger and thumb. He swallows back his tears at the thought of her rejection.

Bonnie nods, hoping she doesn’t look too desperate. 

Bonnie was always the one to touch Kai- place her hands on his chest, his shoulders, his hands. It had been a long time since Bonnie had touched another person, even longer since she touched another person with no malicious intent. And here Kai was, offering it to  _ her _ despite everything they’ve done to each other.

Bonnie takes off her jeans before slipping under the covers. She thinks about moving closer to him but decides against it. She does, however, put her hand above the blanket and places it in the middle of the mattress.

“Is this okay?” Bonnie asks, looking up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah,” Kai says, offering a weak smile even though she can’t see it. He can feel the tension in the air and unlike the other times when it was sexual or anguished, Kai can’t name it.

Glancing at her sleeping in the corner of his eye, he slowly extends his arm to the middle of the bed. They almost touch her hand, Kai’s pinky inches away from Bonnie’s wrist, before deciding against it. He pulls his hand away but keeps it in the middle. If their hands happen to touch in their sleep, well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. With that thought in mind, Kai drifts off to sleep.

Looking over at him, She waves her hand over his eyes and she whispers. “Kai? Kai?”

His lack of response tells her that he’s asleep. Bonnie curls up to his side, carefully and uncertain. She rests her head in the crook between his neck and his shoulder and hesitantly puts a hand on his chest. Rubbing her head into his neck trying to get comfortable and inhaling his shampoo. Her body relaxes against him when Kai’s hand wraps around her waist. Bonnie freezes, afraid that he could be awake. She stays frozen for several moments until she finally calms down against his soft, warm body. Kai’s arm fits perfectly around her waist and her head fits in the crook of his neck. Bonnie listens to his breathing until it matches up with hers. With the sound of their breathing in sync, Bonnie is able to drift away to sleep.

Kai wakes up moments later to see Bonnie asleep in his arms. The weight of her on top of him is comforting and her body gives him a warmth he didn’t know was lacking. He holds Bonnie closer and inhales the smell of her grass, blood, and citrus combination. The smell and warmth calms him immediately. He could be concerned about having her so close, the skin on skin contact being a dangerous combination- in more ways than one- but Kai can’t bring it in himself to care. Kai puts his hand over her much smaller one and holds it gently. The knowledge that she’s real and in his arms gives Kai the comfort he did not have in his two months of isolation. In no time at all, he falls asleep once more.

Tomorrow was a new day but tonight they had this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: They are not quite out of the enemy zone yet.  
> Jake was originally Jacob until I realized that Jo must be truly cruel to call one kid ‘Jacob’ and the other ‘Malachai.’ Jacques is a more popular name than Malachai but since there isn’t a significant French population in the States outside of Louisiana Cajuns, it’s almost as pretentious as Malachai. These names were obviously Joshua’s idea because if anything bad happens in this universe, it will be a result of him.  
> If you are feeling depressed or anxious because of this pandemic, go seek help.  
> Here is the number to a suicide hotline: 1-800-273-8255  
> Sure what you may be going through during this time may not be as bad as being stuck in the Prison World but whatever is making you stressed or helpless or insecure is still a big deal. Please, seek help.
> 
> Next chapter is Jo and the MFG with no BonKai. Don’t hate me because it will show some important plot points that will push BonKai to the friends and lovers zone. But Jo and the MFG will be OOC because I still will not do any research into them.
> 
> Please tell me if there's any mistakes, I started this months ago and it snowballed into 33 pages by accident. I will try to have the next chapter up as soon as possible but college keeps me busy so expect slow updates.

**Author's Note:**

> Who knew violence could be a love language?
> 
> Originally this was going to be a two shot but I’ve decided to split it into about five parts. Maybe more. Mainly because this was starting to be too long for a one shot (This chapter is 16 pages for just this one chapter, I promise the rest of the chapters will not be as long) and I don’t know about you but there is only so much I can take in at a time while reading. There also wasn’t enough BonKai in this chapter to satisfy a pairing tag so I will rectify that later. I will update the second chapter soon because I’m done school soon so be on the lookout for that. But not too soon because I also have a job. I am open to criticism. Please tell me if I’ve made any glaring mistakes because I have never watched TVD or if my fic is misogynistic and racist and ableist with its treatment of Bonnie. I’m a WOC with a mental illness so I want to avoid all of that and sometimes while writing this I feel like I may be falling into some offensive tropes and I really want to avoid that. Even if you aren’t going to tell me what I did wrong, leave a comment down below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.


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